Regulated-research LLM vendor

Context

A pharma company selects an LLM vendor for regulated research. Security, validation, and roadmap dominate; price is almost irrelevant — but standardizing on one hyperscaler creates concentration risk the scorecard doesn't show.

The decision

Weight security and capability heavily and the specialist rises — but pair the pick with its concentration and exit cost before you standardize a validated environment on it.

What most miss

Teams optimize the scorecard and ignore that a security-first weighting pushes them toward the highest-lock-in vendor — the risk view is where the real decision is.

Stakes

In a validated environment, a forced vendor migration mid-study is a compliance and timeline event, not just a cost.