Brittany Trang, Ph.D., covers AI in health and medicine: Does it actually work? Who benefits, or might be harmed? She writes the weekly AI Prognosis newsletter. Follow her on Threads, Mastodon, and Bluesky. You can reach Brittany on Signal at btrang.01.SAN FRANCISCO — Anthropic, the artificial intelligence firm, on Tuesday announced the availability of Claude Science, an application that optimizes the company’s large language model for use in scientific laboratories and, especially, within the research operations of pharmaceutical companies.
The product is a beachhead in Anthropic’s larger battle for the future of biology. The firm has ambitions so big they would seem caricature-like were it not for its financial means. A month ago Anthropic said it had reached annualized sales of $42 billion — about as much as the drug giant GSK — and that it is valued, based on a $65 billion funding round, at $965 billion, far more than any health care company except Eli Lilly.
In the last year, Anthropic’s Claude Code application fundamentally changed the way the computer programming industry works. Eric Kauderer-Abrams, Anthropic’s head of life sciences, told STAT in an interview that the company expects the application unveiled Tuesday to fundamentally change the life sciences in the same way. He also stated that he feels the company’s efforts in biology are “the single most important thing” at Anthropic.
