Exclusive: OpenAI has acquired Orchestra Bio

OpenAI has acquired Orchestra Bio, a startup building AI agents to help pharmaceutical companies manage drug development, the ChatGPT maker shared exclusively with Axios. Why it matters: Rival AI giants OpenAI and Anthropic are both pushing into science as they look to expand beyond their core competencies in coding and cybersecurity. State of play: OpenAI will integrate Orchestra's team and technology into Rosalind, its suite of AI models and tools designed for life sciences researchers, the company said. Orchestra's platform allows scientists to delegate tasks like monitoring studies, tracking drug development timelines and identifying potential delays to AI agents. Both companies aim to deploy agents that can connect scientific findings with the decisions and next steps required to advance potential treatments. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Between the lines: AI companies don't just want to increase productivity, they want to say they are responsible for, say, curing cancer, solving math, and fundamentally changing every critical industry in the world. Those ambitions have fueled acquisitions from rival AI labs. Anthropic acquired AI biotech startup Coefficient Bio for roughly $400 million in April, according to The Information. Zoom in: OpenAI introduced its specialized GPT-Rosalind model in April to help researchers tackle complex problems in biology, chemistry and drug discovery. OpenAI has also partnered with pharmaceutical giants including Novo Nordisk and Moderna to bring AI into research and development workflows. OpenAI says developing a new medicine typically takes 10 to 15 years, a timeline it hopes AI can shorten. Zoom out Anthropic has been making its own aggressive push into life sciences. In June, Anthropic launched Claude Science, an AI-powered research platform that connects scientific databases, analysis tools and specialized agents. In September, the company announced a new biological research lab and said Claude had helped discover a previously unknown enzyme system with similarities to CRISPR, though some scientists said these finders were overblown, per Bloomberg. The bottom line: The AI race is shifting from building the best models to applying that intelligence across industries. Several AI investors told Axios a key question as AI companies go public is how far they can expand into new markets.

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