Irish company ICON has agreed a multi-year collaboration with Anthropic, aiming to introduce Claude’s AI capabilities into various stages of the clinical trial process.
The agreement will see Icon work with Anthropic’s Life Sciences research team to explore and apply technologies that may drive innovation in clinical development.
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This partnership will focus on integrating Anthropic’s AI models within Icon’s secure agentic AI platform, Orbis.
Icon plans to build four core production capabilities within Orbis as part of this project.
These include enhancing its OneSearch and OnePlan tools with model reasoning for site selection and study planning, deploying real-time predictive intelligence to detect enrolment risks and operational signals, and using AI for protocol design and scenario modelling to minimise amendments and expedite study startup.
The Irish company will also embed its clinical expertise into client systems so that customers can directly access insights via Claude.
The company intends to roll out Claude throughout its organisation according to job roles, including Claude Code for developers, Claude Science for clinical and scientific staff, and Claude for knowledge teams.
With Anthropic’s support, Icon aims to advance three key areas of its AI strategy.
The plan includes strengthening the intelligence framework across clinical trials by combining Icon’s knowledge and data with Anthropic’s models and increasing productivity through automation of routine tasks to free up human expertise for higher-value activities.
Icon and Anthropic also intend to develop domain-specific AI agents for use within clinical development workflows.
Icon CEO Barry Balfe said: “We are determined to lead AI acceleration of clinical trials. Working with Anthropic gives us direct access to frontier AI capability and the people who build it.
“By combining Icon’s clinical development expertise, global delivery model and proprietary trial intelligence with Anthropic’s frontier AI capabilities, we believe we can help sponsors make better decisions earlier, execute studies with greater precision and ultimately accelerate the delivery of medicines to patients.”
