Anthropic says Claude is making progress on projects to accelerate drug development

Anthropic says its life sciences team has partnered with BigHat Biosciences, Bristol Myers Squibb, Divergence Labs, Enveda, Generate Biomedicines and The Column Group to apply Claude to several stages of drug development. The company has also started its own projects, including programs for rare childhood forms of muscular dystrophy, where it says Claude handles much of the scientific and operational work, and plans to substantially scale up the effort.

According to Anthropic, six Generate Biomedicines scientists used Claude Code to propose a shorter version of the genetic instructions for a CAR T therapy aimed at solid tumors. The company says one design was about 70% shorter and, in laboratory tests, allowed immune cells to produce roughly 10 times as many receptors, kill tumor cells more efficiently and remain active for longer. Anthropic says some projects could also result in medicines for food allergies, rare childhood diseases and several forms of cancer if their positive trajectories continue.