Anthropic has quietly built a physical biology laboratory in the San Francisco Bay Area as it pushes its artificial intelligence ambitions into drug science.
Key Points:
- Anthropic has set up a wet lab in the Bay Area for physical biology experiments, moving past computer-only research.
- Head of life sciences Eric Kauderer-Abrams confirmed the facility, though a spokesperson said it is not specifically for drug discovery.
- The company wants Claude to direct robotic units that run experiments with limited human involvement.
Anthropic Wet Lab Confirmed
Two people familiar with the matter told Reuters that the startup has built a wet lab, a space for physical experiments, in the Bay Area. Eric Kauderer-Abrams, the company's head of life sciences, confirmed the facility in an interview on Tuesday.
A spokesperson later said the lab is not for drug discovery specifically, and declined to elaborate.
Anthropic has said it wants to unlock treatments for rare diseases, and its biology work now reaches beyond computer-only evaluation. One person said the company wants its Claude models to direct robotic units carrying out experiments with limited human intervention. The spokesperson said human oversight remains essential for safety.
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Kauderer-Abrams Targets Undruggable Diseases
Kauderer-Abrams said AI could speed up work on conditions long written off as undruggable, among them bispecific and trispecific antibodies that strike several targets at once. Life sciences already ranks among the company's biggest investment areas by headcount and resources.
Anthropic is not running clinical trials for now, a boundary he tied partly to competition concerns. He said the company is "not competing with pharma and biotech companies" that bring medicines to market. Customers may still worry that Anthropic learns from their drug programs, the two people said, even as it walls off client data.
The timing is uncomfortable. Over the past two weeks, some Anthropic researchers warned that AI could lead to human extinction, and the company said it had found cases where its systems could have aided biological weapons work, while chief executive Dario Amodei urged a slowdown.
Anthropic Life Sciences Buildout
The lab caps months of expansion. Anthropic launched the Claude Science workbench in June, added Novartis chief Vas Narasimhan to its board, and bought the startup Coefficient Bio for roughly $400 million in stock. In August it released the Model Hardware Standard, which helps AI operate equipment.
Its pharmaceutical roster has widened along the way. Novo Nordisk announced a collaboration on Sept. 16 to test Claude Science in research workflows, following earlier arrangements with Bristol Myers Squibb and Roche's Genentech.
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