Anthropic's IPO push includes a big bet on life sciences

Anthropic's IPO push includes a big bet on life sciences Vas Narasimhan, CEO of the pharma giant Novartis, joined Anthropic's board of directors in April. Hollie Adams/Bloomberg via Getty Images Anthropic conquered coding. Now it's setting its sights on the human body.Anthropic's S-1 filing, which outlines its ambitions and financials ahead of a massive initial public offering next month, reads as a life-sciences manifesto. The maker of Claude sees itself as a crucial cog in the next generation of biological and medicinal research — and is selling that lucrative vision to its would-be investors.Anthropic is hoping for a wave of new discoveries that will support its do-gooder mission and convince the public of AI's power and worth. Its life-science focus could also support financial growth beyond its AI software engineering tools. It would promote the use of Anthropic's most advanced, expensive models in an industry already accustomed to spending billions on research and development.The S-1 filing is scattered with references to biotech ambition. Its second line says AI "could rapidly accelerate scientific innovation" and "bring cures for major diseases within reach." A page later, biological progress tops the company's list of ways it hopes AI will improve lives.Anthropic also references its life sciences business in its "growth strategy" section and writes that nine of the 10 largest pharmaceutical companies and eight of the 10 largest healthcare companies in the Fortune 500 spent at least $100,000 with Anthropic over a recent yearlong period. "In the life sciences sector, where annual global pharmaceutical spend is expected to exceed $2 trillion in 2026, Claude is used in drug discovery and development by our customers, our biotechnology partners, and our own researchers," the company writes in the filing.Anthropic declined to comment.Anthropic has begun investing in life sciencesAnthropic has already gotten to work investing in life sciences. The company's Claude Science product, which is in beta, came out in June. OpenAI, Anthropic's erstwhile rival, has a competing offering dubbed Rosalind, while Google spinoff Isomorphic Labs plans to use AI to create cancer-beating drugs — promising a struggle between companies for research customers.Besides that, Anthropic started a molecular biology lab in the Bay Area this year and spent $400 million in stock in April to buy the biotech startup Coefficient Bio. Vas Narasimhan, the CEO of the pharmaceutical company Novartis, also joined Anthropic's board in April. In August, Anthropic announced a new robotics standard that allows AI to control lab equipment. The company's careers page shows it's on a hiring spree for life sciences roles across chemistry, experimental biology, research engineering, and more. Two new roles opened late this week, offering $320,000 salaries to researchers capable of designing and manufacturing antibodies. In its S-1, Anthropic touted its work with pharma giant Lilly, saying the $1.3 trillion company has 50,000 employees with access to a Claude enterprise account and that more than 85% of its staff actively use the tool.CEO Dario Amodei is prioritizing life sciencesAnthropic CEO Dario Amodei, a former theoretical physicist, has repeatedly touted AI's potential in the life sciences as a reason to advance the tech's capabilities.In a September essay about "pacing" AI research, Amodei said he had survived a cancer that wouldn't have been treatable in the 1970s, and his father had died of a disease cured shortly after his death.He previously elaborated on the themes in a 2024 essay dubbed "Machines of Loving Grace.""Biology is probably the area where scientific progress has the greatest potential to directly and unambiguously improve the quality of human life," Amodei wrote, adding that he hopes AI-enabled research will help prevent and treat all infectious diseases, eliminate most cancers, and double the human lifespan.The general public is less optimistic. Anthropic recently published survey results from August, finding that 91% of staff think AI will make a Nobel-level discovery by 2030, compared with 39% of US adults. No AI-designed drugs have ever received FDA approval.Ben Mann, the co-leader of Anthropic's Labs organization, which builds new products and created Claude Code, told Business Insider this August that his small team is also focusing more on life sciences."Labs itself has shifted its focus from sort of more standard software engineering things to things like what Dario has described as curing all diseases like, Machines of Loving Grace-style," Mann said.Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at scouncil@businessinsider.com, or over text, Signal, Telegram, or WhatsApp at 415-757-8198. Use a personal email address, a non-work WiFi network, and a non-work device; here's our guide to sharing information securely. Read next Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Stephen is a senior tech reporter at Business Insider, covering OpenAI, Anthropic and the ecosystem around the leading artificial intelligence companies.Previously he covered technology at SFGATE, and has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Information and CNBC. He studied journalism and economics at Northwestern University.His work has earned an SF Press Club Investigative Reporting Award and, in 2025, SPJ NorCal’s Excellence in Journalism Award for Technology Reporting.Stephen lives in San Francisco. Contact him via email at scouncil@businessinsider.com, or on Signal, Telegram, or WhatsApp at 415-757-8198. 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