Germany’s former Health Minister, Karl Lauterbach, has dismissed claims that cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and mental illness could be cured within the next decade, describing such a prospect as impossible.
His comments were directed at Anthropic Chief Executive Officer, Dario Amodei, whose company’s initial public offering roadshow video suggested that the diseases would become “relics of the past” within 10 years.
Doctors and a biotechnology executive have also challenged the prediction, according to a Business Insider report published on November 11.
Anthropic began promoting its shares to potential investors on November 10 through an IPO roadshow video featuring Amodei.
In the video, the company’s chief executive identified four diseases, arguing that advances in artificial intelligence could help make them conditions of the past within a decade.
“You know, if today we look at things like cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, mental illness, these will be relics of the past in, I think, less than a decade,” Amodei said.
“I think if we do this right, we can create an age of miracles where humanity is able to solve problems that have eluded us for millennia,” he added.
Amodei linked the promise of medical breakthroughs to AI safety, arguing that companies capable of managing the technology’s risks would earn “the licence to operate that society trusts”.
The seven co-founders also highlighted AI’s potential to transform healthcare in their letter to investors, which was first published alongside the company’s initial IPO filing.
They argued that advances in artificial intelligence could “bring cures for major diseases within reach”.
“First, we believe that AI will profoundly accelerate the rate of progress in biology and medicine, potentially curing diseases that have plagued humanity for millennia, including cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, rare genetic diseases, and the major infectious diseases,” the letter says.
Anthropic already collaborates with pharmaceutical companies on various activities, including drug discovery and clinical trials, according to the letter.
The company also claims its technology can significantly reduce the time required to prepare clinical trial reports, cutting the process from several months to just minutes.
