Anthropic announced a first dedicated life‑sciences product and a new team to accelerate applications of the company’s large‑language models in biology, including drug discovery and lab automation, in an interview with its life‑sciences head Eric Kauderer‑Abrams. The move signals intensified competition among AI labs for bioindustry customers. Separately, industry reports show generative AI is shortening routine pharma analytics from weeks to minutes, democratizing access to data for non‑technical users and improving ROI for expensive datasets. Vendors and pharma analytics teams stressed the need for governance, traceability and targeted use cases to avoid replacing scientific rigor with convenience.