Anthropic's new strategy: sell tools to biotech and build drugs itself
anthropic launched 'claude science' and announced plans to discover drugs for neglected diseases, signaling a shift from selling tools to becoming a direct competitor in the pharma space.
anthropic introduced claude science, an integrated workbench for scientists, and declared its intent to develop proprietary drugs, focusing on neglected diseases. while the firm lists major biotech clients, this move pits it against partners like pfizer and merck, creating a complex vendor-customer dynamic. anthropic provided few details on clinical trials or manufacturing, but this escalation mirrors trends by google's isomorphic labs. the strategy proves that frontier labs are moving beyond text generation into high-stakes, real-world biology applications where failures can cost billions.