Objective To explore the efficacy and underlying mechanism of Astragalus in the treatment of viral pancreatitis using network pharmacology, with confirmation of its efficacy and mechanism in cell experiments. Methods Astragalus and viral pancreatitis targets obtained from the Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology (TCMSP) and GeneCards databases were combined to obtain intersection targets. GO functional enrichment and KEGG signaling pathway enrichment analyses of therapeutic targets were conducted using the Database for Annotation, Visualization, and Integrated Discovery (DAVID) database. The interactions between therapeutic targets were analyzed using the STRING database and Cytoscape 3.10.2, and the core therapeutic targets were screened. Molecular docking between the most effective therapeutic components and the core targets was performed using PyMOL 3.0 and AutoDock Tools 1.5.7. CVB3 was used to construct a viral pancreatitis cell model for verification of the core targets. Results Seventy-eight therapeutic targets were identified. Enrichment analyses revealed the possible involvement of pathways related to cancer, lipids and atherosclerosis, and PI3K-AKT signaling. AKT1, TP53, HIF1A, CASP3, IL-6, and MMP9 were identified as possible core targets. The result of cell experiments showed that the expression level of AMY was significantly increased in the model group(P<0.05). The Astragalus injection group exhibited significantly decreased expression levels of AMY, AKT1, TP53, HIF1A, CASP3, IL-6, and MMP9 compared with the model group(P<0.05). Conclusions Astragalus injection effectively treated viral pancreatitis, and its therapeutic mechanism may involve reduced expression levels of AKT1, TP53, HIF1A, CASP3, IL-6, and MMP9.