Anthropic starts drug discovery initiative for 100 neglected diseases

Anthropic announced that they started their own drug discovery process to cure 100 rare diseases deemed too unprofitable by Big Pharma. Claude Science already picked 32 compounds for clinical trials. The CEO of Novartis says that AI will shorten the time from lab to shelf to 7–8 years instead of 12 years and increase the chance of success from 8% to 16%.

Pharma is the last sector to transition from AI-assisted to AI-driven discovery. Now, even diseases without a profit motive can be treated (not just charitably, but actually researched), which is possible for the first time ever thanks to technology.