Insights / Therapeutic Area
Field notes on Rare Diseases and Orphan Drugs — the economics, regulatory pathways, and platform theses shaping the space.
4 posts in Rare Diseases / Orphan Drugs
2 Jul 2026 · 3 min read
Anthropic launched Claude Science on June 30, targeting neglected diseases, and I read it as deliberate dogfooding — the same path Claude Code took from internal tool to product. The real bet is that value in AI-bio accrues at the workflow and orchestration layer, not at the model weights.
25 Jun 2026 · 1 min read
Sanofi and Pangaea Data's AATD collaboration shows where pharma AI may create near-term value: finding undiagnosed patients already visible in clinical records. In rare disease, patient identification can create patient value and market expansion at the same time.
13 Nov 2025 · 1 min read
AbbVie is quietly unwinding its 11-year longevity bet with Google's (Alphabet's) Calico Life Sciences — a $1.5B collaboration started in 2014 around aging and age-related disease. I don't think this particular setback signals something more fundamental, but it raises real questions about where dedicated drug development in longevity is headed.
4 Dec 2024 · 1 min read
I attended a fascinating panel at Health Tech Forward on Automation in Clinical Trials featuring in-silico trials and digital twins. Speakers from QuantHealth, a leading VC, and United Therapeutics shared how AI is cutting trial lengths, replacing animal models, and opening new doors for orphan disease research.