Anthropic plots IPO amid ongoing foray into drug development

Anthropic, a company that develops artificial intelligence (AI), has explained its plans to do more work on finding and developing medicines as it prepares to sell its shares on the Nasdaq stock exchange for the first time.

In a recent filing called an S-1 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Anthropic said it plans to launch AI technology that it believes can "compress decades of scientific progress into years, accelerating drug discovery, disease detection and the delivery of personalised therapy".

The main part of Anthropic's plan is Powerful AI, an advanced AI model that the company hopes will match or exceed the thinking skills of leading human experts in most professional and scientific fields. Anthropic also plans to design Powerful AI to operate laboratory equipment, robots and other machines through digital connections.

Anthropic shared more details about Powerful AI after launching another AI tool, Claude Science, in July 2026. The company designed Claude Science to bring together separate tools and databases used during drug discovery, helping people work more efficiently. At the time, Anthropic also announced plans to carry out its own drug discovery research, with a special focus on diseases that receive too little attention.

The company is also continuing to build partnerships with major drugmakers, including Novo Nordisk, Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS), AbbVie and Sanofi.

Anthropic did not say how much it plans to charge for its shares in its IPO filing. However, it said it plans to list on the Nasdaq under the stock symbol 'ANT'. According to an article by The New York Times, Anthropic is considering raising $100 billion. This could value the company at as much as $2 trillion as its business continues to grow quickly. If this happens, Anthropic could become one of the world's 10 most valuable companies.

Claude, Anthropic's main family of large language models (LLMs), has been a major business success in recent years. However, Anthropic also warned about possible risks in its S-1 filing. It said its models may "behave in unintended, misaligned or autonomous ways, including by taking harmful actions that no user or third party directed". This warning comes as Australia investigates a hacking incident involving a model made by Anthropic's rival, OpenAI, which affected Medicare.

Experts warn that people with harmful intentions could misuse AI. They stress that strong rules and oversight are important when using AI in high-risk areas such as drug discovery and development.

According to GlobalData's Pharmaceutical Intelligence Center, the total value of partnerships between pharmaceutical companies and AI companies rose by 120% from 2024 to 2025. This shows that the pharmaceutical industry is increasingly investing heavily in AI.

GlobalData is the parent company of Pharmaceutical Technology.

The article "Anthropic plots IPO amid ongoing foray into drug development" was first published by Pharmaceutical Technology, a brand owned by GlobalData.