Anthropic sets up biology lab to expand AI drug research

Anthropic has expanded its artificial intelligence ambitions by stepping into the world of biology and drug science.

As reported by Reuters and cited by sources privy to the matter, the tech giant has quietly built a biology lab, wet lab, aimed at conducting physical experiments in the San Francisco, Bay Area.

The revelation comes at a time when the world and international community is in a panic state as AI-related fears mount. Following growing artificial intelligence safety fears, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for putting a break on AI development as these models start demonstrating recursive self improving capabilities.

As per sources, the motive behind setting up a lab is to unlock “breakthrough treatments for rare diseases and its biology work has gone beyond ‘in silico’ or ‌ computer evaluations.”

Besides sources’ information, the confirmation related to the startup's wet lab came from Anthropic’s head of life sciences.

"We believe that to do biology, the final test is still and will be for a while in real lab work," he said.

"We absolutely are doing that today, and I would describe our approach as being typical of what you would see in most biotech companies, where there's some amount of that that we're doing in our own facilities and some amount of that that we're working with external partners on."

A spokesperson subsequently clarified that the Anthropic lab does not focus specifically on drug discovery, though they declined to provide further details.

Anthropic aims to tackle diseases overlooked by traditional pharmaceutical companies, driven partly by Amodei’s personal experience with his father's illness. Executives view the life sciences as the biggest opportunity to build powerful AI that benefits the world.

The company believes AI can fast-track the discovery of complex molecules like bispecific and trispecific antibodies to treat conditions previously considered too difficult.

Besides allegedly pursuing drug ambitions, Anthropic, like other biotech firms, is likely to embrace physical automation, as per sources. Moreover, it will use the Claude system to control physical robots and run lab tests with only limited human intervention.

Kauderer-Abrams explains, “We're in the very early innings of using AI to automate the execution of lab work, an area that has the potential to bring about meaningful acceleration in so many different processes."

Speaking about the industry-related acquisition, Anthropic bought the biotech AI startup for $400 million in stock to strengthen its drug development tooling. Moreover, Novartis CEO also joined Anthropic board as the company launched tools like Claude Science. Anthropic also provides AI tools to major pharmaceutical players, such as Genentech, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Novo Nordisk.