AI in the lab: Anthropic buys one-person biotech and shows pharma results
Anthropic has acquired Mithril Medicine, a one-person company developing therapies for rare muscle diseases. The Claude developer also presented interim results from six pharmaceutical partnerships.
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Anthropic is expanding its drug-research business. The Claude developer has acquired Mithril Medicine, a company with a single employee that is developing treatments for two rare forms of muscular dystrophy. According to Anthropic, founder Cody Tranbarger used Claude to coordinate contracts, logistics and experiments with 11 external labs and took a drug candidate from idea to promising results in mice in under 18 months. If the candidates hold up, human trials could begin in late 2028 at the earliest.
On 27 October Anthropic also published interim results with six partners, including Bristol Myers Squibb, Generate Biomedicines and Enveda. At Enveda, the time needed to review manufacturing documents fell by 89 percent, from more than 25 hours to under three, the companies say; in one test Claude found all eleven issues human reviewers had caught plus seven more. Divergence Labs used Claude to generate about 35,000 antibody designs against allergies in roughly a month.
The figures have not been independently verified: they are case studies selected by the partners, without a shared benchmark. No approved drug has emerged from the projects so far. Bristol Myers Squibb is using Claude to assess early clinical trial plans and their chances of success, and plans to expand the work in 2027.