Claude for Life Sciences vs. Charlie: Which AI Agent Should You Choose?

Anthropic launched Claude for Life Sciences in October 2025, strengthening its offering for scientific research. Find out how this solution compares to Charlie, Emerit Science's sovereign scientific AI agent.

Emerit Science Team

January 13, 2026

Comparison of Claude for Life Sciences vs. Charlie

The market for AI agents for scientific research is undergoing a major evolution. In October 2025, Anthropic unveiled Claude for Life Sciences, a specialized offering for the life sciences sector. This announcement positions Claude as a direct competitor to specialized solutions suchCharlieas Emerit Science.

But what are the real differences between these two solutions? Which platform should you choose based on your biomedical research needs? This article provides a detailed and objective comparison.

1. Presentation of the two solutions

Claude for Life Sciences (Anthropic)

Claude for Life Sciences is an extension of Claude, Anthropic's conversational AI model. Launched in October 2025, this offering is specifically targeted at life sciences professionals: researchers, clinical coordinators, and regulatory managers.

The solution is based on Claude Sonnet 4.5, Anthropic's most advanced model, which outperforms previous models on life science-specific benchmarks such as Protocol QA (0.83 vs. human baseline of 0.79) and BixBench for bioinformatics.

Charlie (Emerit Science)

Charlie is a scientific AI agent developed by Emerit Science, a French company specializing in AI for research. Designed from the outset for European researchers, Charlie emphasizes digital sovereignty, GDPR compliance, and access to scientific databases.

Charlie offers a native "agent" approach capable of performing complex tasks autonomously: searching PubMed, analyzing patents on Espacenet, extracting GEO data, and generating structured literature reviews.

2. Detailed comparison table

Criterion	Claude for Life Sciences	Charlie
Company	Anthropic (United States)	Emerit Science (France)
Data hosting	United States / AWS or GCP Cloud	Europe (France)
GDPR compliance	Partial (transfer to the USA)	check_circle Complete
PubMed connector	check_circle Yes (via connector)	check_circle Yes (native)
PubMedCentral Access	Via connector	check_circle Native + full text
Patents (Espacenet)	cancel No	check_circle Yes
Genomic data (GEO)	Via 10x Genomics	check_circle Native (NCBI GEO)
Benchling (LIMS)	check_circle Yes	cancel No
BioRender (figures)	check_circle Yes	cancel No
Scholar Gateway (Wiley)	check_circle Yes	cancel No
Auto literature review	check_circle Yes	check_circle Yes (specialized)
Custom Agent Skills	check_circle Yes	check_circle Yes
Support in French	Limited	check_circle Native
Pricing	Team/Enterprise (upon request)	Free / Pro / Enterprise

3. Connectors and data sources

The strengths of Claude for Life Sciences

Anthropic has developed an impressive ecosystem of connectors for Claude for Life Sciences:

Benchling: Direct access to lab data, notebooks, and experimental records.
BioRender: Library of scientific figures, icons, and templates for presentations.
Scholar Gateway (Wiley): Access to the publisher's peer-reviewed scientific content.
Synapse.org: Collaborative platform for data sharing and analysis.
10x Genomics: Single-cell and spatial analysis in natural language.
Databricks / Snowflake: Analytics for large-scale bioinformatics.

Charlie's strengths

Charlie focuses on public databases essential to research:

PubMed PubMed: Native access with full-text extraction for Open Access articles.
Espacenet (EPO): Search and analysis of European and international patents.
Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO): Access to gene expression data from the NCBI.
Sovereign sources: Focus on access to data without foreign technological dependence.

Charlie's approach prioritizes complete agent autonomy: agents can chain together multiple queries, cross-reference sources, and produce summaries without human intervention.

4. GDPR compliance and digital sovereignty

This is where the two solutions differ most fundamentally.

warningClaude for Life Sciences

Data is transferred via Anthropic's servers in the United States, which are subject to the CLOUD Act and other US regulations. Even with contractual safeguards, the transfer of sensitive data outside the EU raises compliance issues for European institutions.

check_circleCharlie

Infrastructure hosted in France, natively GDPR compliant. No data transfer outside the EU. Solution tailored to the requirements of European public laboratories, universities, and healthcare institutions.

For French academic institutions (CNRS, INSERM, universities) or companies subject to strict regulations, the issue of sovereignty can be decisive.

5. Use cases and recommendations

Choose Claude for Life Sciences if:

You already work with Benchling as your LIMS and want direct integration.
You need to access Wiley content via Scholar Gateway.
Your team uses 10x Genomics for single-cell analysis.
You are a private company without strict European regulatory constraints.
You need the latest features of Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Claude Code.
Your organization already has an Enterprise contract with Anthropic.

Choose Charlie if:

GDPR compliance is a non-negotiable requirement for your institution.
You are a French public laboratory (CNRS, INSERM, universities).
You need to analyze patents on Espacenet in addition to scientific literature.
You are looking for native French support and proximity to the development team.
You want a sovereign European solution without technological dependence on the US.
You need an agent capable of independently cross-referencing PubMed, patents, and genomic data.
Your budget is limited and you want to get started for free.

6. Performance of AI models

Anthropic highlights the performance of Claude Sonnet 4.5 on benchmarks specific to life sciences:

Protocol QA: 0.83 (vs. 0.79 human baseline) - understanding of laboratory protocols
BixBench: Improved performance in bioinformatics
Agent Skills: Ability to follow scientific protocols consistently

Charlie also uses cutting-edge language models, specializing in the extraction and synthesis of scientific information. Charlie's "agent" architecture allows it to perform complex actions autonomously, which potentially compensates for differences in the raw performance of the underlying models.

7. Ecosystem and partnerships

Claude for Life Sciences benefits from impressive partnerships with major players:

Pharmaceuticals: Sanofi, Novo Nordisk, Genmab
Research: Broad Institute (MIT/Harvard), Stanford University
Biotech: 10x Genomics, Schrödinger, EvolutionaryScale, Latch Bio
Consulting: Deloitte, Accenture, PwC, KPMG

Charlie , as an emerging European player, is gradually building its ecosystem with French academic institutions and European biotech companies, focusing on proximity and personalized service.

Conclusion: Two complementary philosophies

Claude for Life Sciences and Charlie represent two different approaches to the scientific AI market:

Claude for Life Sciences offers a rich ecosystem of connectors to commercial tools (Benchling, BioRender, Wiley), partnerships with the world's leading institutions, and the power of Claude Sonnet 4.5.
Charlie offers a sovereign, GDPR-compliant alternative focused on essential public databases (PubMed, patents, GEO) and support in native French.

The choice between the two will depend mainly on your regulatory constraints, your existing tool ecosystem, and your need for digital sovereignty. For many European institutions, the issue of GDPR compliance will be a determining factor in this choice.

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