Anthropic reports first drug-development results
On 27 October 2026 Anthropic published a report on drug-development work with six organizations (BigHat Biosciences, Bristol Myers Squibb, Divergence Labs, Enveda, Generate Biomedicines, The Column Group) and said it had acquired Mithril Medicine, a one-person company developing treatments for two rare forms of muscular dystrophy. The post gives partners' results from early, mostly preclinical work and mentions the rollout of Claude Science, credits for life scientists and a Life Sciences Verification Program.
Why it matters
Anthropic is moving from selling a model to scientists to running drug programmes of its own: it bought a company and says Claude does much of the scientific and operational work in its muscular dystrophy programmes. The evidence is the company's own account of partners' early results; nothing has been tested in people.
What the post says (published 27 October 2026). Generate Biomedicines: six scientists using Claude Code proposed designs for a shorter part of the genetic instructions of a CAR T-cell therapy; one design was about 70% shorter and in lab tests the immune cells made roughly 10 times as many receptors. Divergence Labs: Claude, largely autonomously, generated roughly 35,000 antibody designs in about a month; in early tests three bound IgE and 20 dislodged it, three of those better than the standard medication. BigHat Biosciences: about 1,010 variants in about 10 weeks; the best versions bound more than 10x more tightly; one lead stayed in solution 18°C higher and the other clumped more than 100x more slowly. Enveda: over 1,061 pages of documentation Claude caught all 11 issues human reviewers had spotted and flagged seven they had missed; review time fell by 89%; first drafts of two regulatory documents (one took four hours against about three months by hand). The Column Group is establishing Pleiades; its first Claude skill was evaluated on 45 target-disease pairs. Bristol Myers Squibb plans to expand the work in 2027. Mithril Medicine: a "one-person company"; its founder Cody Tranbarger used Claude to organize contracts, logistics and experiments with 11 external labs; from an idea to promising results in mice in less than 18 months; Anthropic expects a drug ready for human trials "as soon as late 2028". The post admits: "all of this research is still at an early stage", "mostly preclinical". Also: Claude Science "rolled out", a Life Sciences Verification Program (more capable models with more permissive safeguards for trusted organizations), an open call for guest investigators. What the record does not claim. The page names no price and no closing day for the Mithril deal. Every figure is Anthropic's account of its partners' work; the technical reports and partners' pages the post links to were not read and there is no independent check. Whether Claude Science was rolled out now or the post only recalls the beta of 30 June (evt-0024), the page does not say.