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.