Claude ChEMBL connectorWhat Claude can do in your ChEMBL account.
The Claude ChEMBL connector exposes 6 tools, and all 6 read. 0 write and 0 are left undocumented. Claude searches the public ChEMBL database of bioactive molecules for you: compounds, drugs, targets, activity data, mechanisms and ADMET properties.
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What changes once Claude can query ChEMBL
Instead of opening the ChEMBL website, typing a compound name and copying tables by hand, you ask Claude a research question in plain English. It picks the right lookups, chains them, and brings back curated activity data with the publication it came from. There is no account to link: ChEMBL is a public database run by EMBL-EBI.
Shortlist potent compounds for a target. A medicinal chemist asks for approved kinase inhibitors hitting EGFR below 100 nM. Claude finds the protein with target_search, then pulls the measured values through get_bioactivity, each one tied to its assay and journal reference.
Check whether a molecule looks drug-like. Ask whether aspirin passes Lipinski's Rule of Five, and get_admet returns its calculated properties: lipophilicity, polar surface area, hydrogen bond counts and a QED score.
Map a therapeutic area. A business development analyst wants every approved hypertension drug and how each one works. drug_search lists them by indication, and get_mechanism adds the curated mode of action.
What it will not do: by default, the sheet only exposes reading, and no tool on it adds, corrects or annotates records in ChEMBL; and it never touches your own lab data, since this connector reaches a public database and nothing else. Nothing runs on its own either; Claude queries only while it answers you. For context on how other publishers document their connectors, browse the Integrations hub, or compare with the Claude affinity connector page.
Five words before you connect
The vocabulary around this connector, in one minute.
- Connector
- A link you set up once between Claude and an outside service, so Claude can use that service while it answers you.
- Tool
- One named lookup the connector gives Claude. Claude decides by itself which ones to call, and the directory lists each one by name.
- Authorization
- The sign-in screen where a service hands Claude its access. ChEMBL needs none, according to its sheet in the directory.
- Approval
- The confirmation Claude waits for before doing something that changes an account, shown in the conversation when it matters.
- MCP
- The shared standard connectors are built on: it is what lets an assistant like Claude talk to an outside service such as ChEMBL.
Connect ChEMBL to Claude in three steps
- 01
Find ChEMBL in Claude
Open Claude's settings, go to Customize then Connectors, and look for ChEMBL in the list. On a Team or Enterprise workspace, an Owner or Primary Owner has to enable it before members can each use it.
- 02
Start the connection
Click Connect on the ChEMBL row. If a connection ever stops responding, click Disconnect, then connect again: that is the official way to repair a broken link.
- 03
Check what the access covers
With a service that has accounts, this is where you read its own authorization screen before accepting. For ChEMBL, the directory sheet says sign-in is not required, so there is no account of yours to open up.
The 6 ChEMBL tools, all on the reading side
ChEMBL gives Claude 6 tools: 6 that read your account, 0 that change something in it.
Every tool below is described in Anthropic's own ChEMBL tutorial, and each one only looks things up. Names stay exactly as Claude shows them.
- 6 read
What Claude reads (6)
6 toolsSix lookups into the public ChEMBL database. None of them changes anything.
get_admet
Returns the calculated drug-likeness profile of a molecule: ALogP lipophilicity, polar surface area, hydrogen bond donors and acceptors, Rule of Five violations and a QED score.
get_bioactivity
Pulls measured activity between a compound and a target, such as binding constants and potency values, together with the assay description, pChEMBL score, confidence rating and the peer-reviewed paper behind each figure.
compound_search
Finds a molecule from its common name, its ChEMBL identifier or a SMILES string, and brings back its properties, synonyms, approval status and ATC classification codes.
drug_search
Lists approved drugs and clinical candidates for a disease, using MeSH terms for the indication, along with their development phase, approval dates and safety warnings.
get_mechanism
Explains how a drug acts on its biological target, with the curated action type (inhibitor, agonist, antagonist and so on) and the references that support it.
target_search
Looks up proteins, enzymes and receptors by name, gene symbol or organism, and returns their protein accessions, Gene Ontology annotations and links to UniProt and other databases.
What Claude checks with you first
By default, Claude stops and asks before any action it takes on an account on someone's behalf. With ChEMBL, every documented tool is a lookup.
All six tools are described as lookups, and no source says whether Claude asks before running them, so the default rule above is the reference. Governance still applies. On Team and Enterprise workspaces, owners decide whether members may let some actions through without a prompt each time, and they can cap what a connector may do for the whole organization. Nobody overrides that from their own account. Claude also never gets more than the person connected has, and here that is public data only.
Which Claude plans include ChEMBL
None of the 819 sheets in the official directory shows its availability by plan. Connector by connector, that information is published nowhere.
The general rule is sourced: remote connectors are open to all users on Claude, Cowork, Claude Desktop and mobile. On Team and Enterprise, an Owner or Primary Owner opens a connector before members can use it. For the live state of this one, check its sheet in the official directory, the only place that shows where it stands for your own account.
Where the ChEMBL connector stops
A connector is not an automation. Claude calls these tools only while it answers you, so nothing fires when ChEMBL publishes a new release.
By default, the sheet only exposes reading, and that is an observed floor rather than a promise: an administrator can open actions that no public sheet lists. The only documentation is Anthropic's own tutorial, linked from the sheet; there is no separate help center article. Anthropic publishes this connector itself, but the directory badge is still not a security audit, and the directory states it does not guarantee that tools behave as announced.
Need help connecting ChEMBL to Claude?
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