Recursion Pharmaceuticals

Recursion Pharmaceuticals is a biotechnology company that combines experimental biology and AI to identify treatments for rare diseases, aging, inflammation, infectious diseases, and immunology. The company's approach is based on experimenting by making healthy cells sick, scanning images, and experimenting with its AI platform to understand how they differ from healthy cells. Its lab can perform one million such experiments a week.

Recursion operates as a full-stack player engaged in drug discovery and development. It has seven drug candidates focused on rare diseases and oncology, five of which are in Phase II or advancing toward Phase III.

In May 2023 , Recursion acquired two drug discovery companies, Cyclica (for USD 40 million) and Valence (USD 47.5 million), to strengthen its chemistry and GenAI capabilities. In June 2023 , the company also launched its Canadian headquarters in Toronto.

Key customers and partnerships

The company was also engaged in Big Pharma collaborations in more competitive areas. Some of these were: Bayer (September 2020) to develop novel treatments for fibrotic diseases, which shifted focus to precision oncology treatments in November 2023 ; NVIDIA (July 2023) to leverage NVIDIA’ s cloud services; Roche (December 2021) to develop 40 new treatments for neuroscience and oncology targets; Takeda Pharmaceutical (May 2020) to obtain the license to Takeda’s MEK inhibitor, TAK-733, and develop it for the treatment of a hereditary cancer syndrome; and Sanofi (April 2016) to repurpose Sanofi’s clinical-stage molecules

In June 2021, the company entered into a collaboration with the Montreal-based Mila - Quebec Artificial Intelligence (AI) Institute, to leverage its network of expert scientists and professionals to accelerate the company’s machine learning capabilities. The company also announced it will launch its first major multidisciplinary expansion, in Toronto, to further enhance tech-enabled drug discovery, by the end of 2021. 

Funding and financials

Recursion secured a USD 50 million investment from NVIDIA in July 2023 in the form of a private investment in public equity (PIPE) to develop its AI foundation models for biology and chemistry. The funding was linked to its NVIDIA partnership mentioned above.

The company’s revenue in 2023 amounted to USD 44.6 million as opposed to USD 39.8 million in 2022.