A biology laboratory now sits inside Anthropic’s Bay Area operation. The facility lets the company run physical experiments rather than only simulated ones. Eric Kauderer-Abrams, who runs life sciences there, confirmed it in a Reuters interview.
“We believe that to do biology, the final test is still and will be for a while in real lab work,” he said. A spokesperson later told CNBC that the lab is not specifically for drug discovery, though the company declined to elaborate.
The open question is whether Claude can direct robotic systems to run experiments with almost no staffing. Kauderer-Abrams said humans remain a safety requirement, and called AI-executed lab work very early.
The wet lab caps a fast buildout of Anthropic’s life sciences arm. Claude Science, its research workbench, connects to dozens of scientific databases. The company also absorbed Coefficient Bio in a stock deal. Separately, Novartis chief executive Vas Narasimhan took a board seat.
Drugmaker partnerships have followed. Novo Nordisk is applying Claude to discovery work, and Bristol Myers Squibb gave its researchers access. Kauderer-Abrams said the company is not competing with pharmaceutical firms, and pointed to rare diseases that traditional drugmakers find financially unattractive.
On Sep 17 the company also opened a Life Sciences Verification Program. It gives life science teams access to models with biology safeguards loosened for tasks such as drug discovery.
