At an event in San Francisco, Eric Kauderer-Abrams, Anthropic's head of life sciences, said the company is launching the program to build better models and tools for the industry. "We're doing this because we believe first and foremost that to build the right models, products and tools to accelerate the industry, we need to live it along with all of you," Kauderer-Abrams said.
He added that firsthand experience is essential. "We believe in the power of tight feedback loops, and there's no substitute for having our own experiences alongside you all in the trenches trying to develop drugs," Kauderer-Abrams said.
Anthropic also unveiled Claude Science, a new offering intended for pharmaceutical companies that want to leverage AI.
Anthropic is not the first tech company to move into healthcare. Alphabet, Apple, and Amazon have all made bets on the industry. Amazon built a healthcare business by buying One Medical and PillPack, which now operates as a division called Amazon Health Services.
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Anthropic is taking a different approach. Instead of acquiring clinics or pharmacies, it is building AI tools and running its own drug discovery lab. The company believes that doing the work itself will help it build the right models for the industry.
Kauderer-Abrams did not say what Anthropic would do if its program finds a promising drug candidate. In the pharmaceutical sector, candidate compounds are typically moved into clinical trials to test safety and efficacy. An Anthropic spokesperson told CNBC that "as a public benefit company, we can choose programs on patient benefit, including work the commercial market overlooks." The spokesperson also said, "We're at the start of this, and we'll share more as the work progresses."
Jonah Cool, Anthropic's head of life sciences partnerships, stated that the company intends to prioritize neglected illnesses while developing and commercializing AI platforms for life science firms.
Anthropic has not given a timeline or said how much it will spend on its drug discovery effort.
By running its own lab, Anthropic gains firsthand experience in drug discovery, which executives believe is crucial for building effective AI models. This direct involvement enables the company to refine its tools based on actual scientific challenges, rather than relying solely on external data.
By focusing on these areas, Anthropic aligns with its public-benefit corporate charter, which allows the company to prioritize patient outcomes over profit. The move also gives Anthropic a real-world testing ground for its AI models, creating what executives call a "tight feedback loop" between model development and actual scientific work. This hands-on approach could yield advances in both drug discovery and AI capabilities, though the company has provided no financial or timeline commitments for the effort.
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