Scorpion Capital 做空 Twist Bioscience，质疑 Anthropic 蛋白设计项目被市场误读为重大合作

$TWST Twist Biosciences AI drug-discovery story is a speculative delusion with no disclosure of an Anthropic partnership. If the results reported in Anthropic's paper generalize, it would be highly deflationary for Twist and crush their revenue. In fact, Anthropic's note explicity diminishes Twist as merely an "independent contract research organization (CRO)” - not an AI drug-discovery technology partner.

TWST issued what looks like a reactive 8-K confirming the Anthropic post - not even worthy of a press release - which was filed under Item 7.01 Reg FD, not 1.01 Entry Into A Material Definitive Agreement. 

Anthropic's post stated that 22%-35% of Claude-designed proteins successfully bound their targets versus a stated 10%-15% hit rate for typical protein-design campaigns. That means scientists would need to order only about half as many physical constructs per successful binder - bearish and deflationary.

1. Late yesterday, TD Cowen analyst Brendan Smith hyped an Anthropic blog post about a protein-design project and named Anthropic as a Twist customer, saying this supports the “quality and durability” of AI-driven demand for Twist. This appears to have triggered a broader meltup across AI/biology names like $TEM and $TXG. We suspect Smith's exuberance caught everyone off guard, including Twist, given the immaterial nature of the Anthropic post. 

2. Piper Sandler's David Westenberg fanned the flames with a note pushing it even further, calling it a partnership - a word missing in both Twist and Anthropic's 8-K/post -- "We believe the partnership between Anthropic and TWST marks a significant milestone..." 

3. Anthropic's blog post/paper never refer to Twist as a partner, merely as an "external evaluator," whatever that means. The technical details in the note portray Twist as a commodity CRO (contract research organization) that provided outsourced wet-lab production and testing services -- not an AI drug-discovery technology partner. Twist operates in a low-end cesspool, competing against Chinese vendors like Genscript using Google search ads in a race to the bottom on price. 

(Anthropic paper summarized in the post referring to Twist as a CRO - https://t.co/uQ3OJhz18w).

4. Cowen's characterization of the relationship as significant is highly misleading: "While Twist management has not disclosed which quarter revenues from this specific project will fall into, the identification of Anthropic as a customer directly supports the quality and durability of the underlying AI demand." If any economics were involved, we suspect they are trivial given the technical details in the post, and certainly not material enough to merit a quarterly revenue disclosure.

Disclosure - We are short $TWST Twist Biosciences.