Claude in drug discovery: Anthropic acquires Mithril Medicine

On October 27, Anthropic’s science team published the first results of Claude’s work in drug discovery. For several months, the company ran research partnerships with six companies: BigHat Biosciences, Bristol Myers Squibb, Divergence Labs, Enveda, Generate Biomedicines and The Column Group. Along the way, it announced that it had acquired Mithril Medicine, a company developing therapies for rare forms of muscular dystrophy.

What’s new?

Until now, AI in pharma was mostly talked about in the context of protein design. Here, Claude works across the whole pipeline: from designing molecules, through manufacturing documentation, to clinical trial plans. And interestingly, each partner published its own technical report with numbers.

The strongest results from the labs:

1. Generate Biomedicines is working on a CAR-T therapy for solid tumors. Six scientists designed with Claude Code, and one of the designs was about 70% shorter than the standard one and let immune cells produce roughly 10 times more receptors (report).
2. Divergence Labs is looking for a food allergy drug that detaches IgE antibodies from immune cells. Claude turned the scientists’ goals into a plan and, largely on its own, generated about 35,000 antibody designs in roughly a month. In tests, three of them displaced IgE more effectively than the standard drug (preprint).
3. BigHat Biosciences connected Claude to its lab data system. In about 10 weeks, the lab produced and tested about 1,010 variants, and the best ones bound the target more than 10 times more strongly than the starting versions (report).

Claude in drug discovery is also paperwork

The less flashy but probably most tangible part is about documents. According to Anthropic, chemists in drug manufacturing can spend as much as 75% of their time on paperwork.

Enveda connected its manufacturing documentation to Claude. Across 1,061 pages, Claude found all 11 issues flagged by humans and seven that humans missed, and review time dropped by 89%, from over 25 hours to under three. One of the two regulatory documents Claude wrote took four hours instead of about three months (Enveda’s report).

Bristol Myers Squibb uses Claude to evaluate clinical trial plans for an early-stage drug and to estimate the chances of success. Michael Pourdehnad of BMS says that “from a single prompt, Claude generated a robust initial analysis”. The partners want to expand this collaboration in 2027.

Why does Anthropic need a drug company?

Mithril Medicine is the story of Cody Tranbarger, who ran drug programs for two rare forms of muscular dystrophy on his own. Claude coordinated contracts, logistics and experiments across 11 external labs for him. According to Anthropic, one of the therapies went from idea to promising results in mice in less than 18 months.

Tranbarger now works at Anthropic and is planning more programs. If the candidates pan out, a drug could be ready for human clinical trials at the end of 2028 at the earliest. The Column Group has a similar idea and is founding a company called Pleiades: a small team with Claude is meant to run more programs than it could normally handle alone.

This fits well with other scientific projects of Claude’s I’ve written about, like the formal verification of 123 open-source libraries or quantum circuits with fewer gates.

What to watch out for?

First, the research stage. Anthropic itself notes that everything is at an early stage and mostly preclinical, which means none of these drugs is being tested in humans yet. The road from a good lab result to a drug at the pharmacy is a very long one.

Second, the sources. The numbers come from Anthropic and its partners, and there are no independent replications yet (let’s take them with a grain of salt).

Third, the timing. Anthropic has just filed its S-1 prospectus ahead of its Nasdaq listing, so showcases like this beyond programming also help build a story for investors.

How can you use it?

Anthropic offers scientists several paths: the Claude Science environment, Claude credits for life sciences researchers, the Life Sciences Verification Program with looser safeguards for verified organizations, and an open call for guest investigators.

FAQ

Did Claude discover a new drug?

No. Claude helped design and improve drug candidates, but none has gone through human trials yet. The earliest date for clinical trials that Anthropic gives is the end of 2028.

What is Mithril Medicine?

It’s Cody Tranbarger’s one-person company developing therapies for two rare forms of muscular dystrophy. Anthropic acquired it, and the founder now works at Anthropic.

Which pharmaceutical companies does Anthropic work with?

This announcement names BigHat Biosciences, Bristol Myers Squibb, Divergence Labs, Enveda, Generate Biomedicines and The Column Group.