Recursion (merged with Exscientia)
Overview
Recursion Pharmaceuticals is a US biotech company using AI and automation to transform drug discovery. Their platform integrates biology, chemistry, automation, data science, and engineering to run experiments far faster and broader than traditional drug discovery, accelerating new drug candidate discovery.
Key Features
Recursion OS
Core platform. Uses AI to analyze biological data from large-scale automated experiments to discover new therapeutic targets and drug candidates.
Phenomics
AI detects phenotype changes in cell images to capture drug effects in millions of dimensions.
Large-Scale Automation
Fully automated labs run 1.5M+ experiments per week — hundreds of times faster than traditional drug discovery.
AI Models
Proprietary foundation models trained on cell image data for data-driven target discovery.
Pipeline
Multiple disease areas:
- Cancer
- Rare diseases
- Inflammatory diseases
- Neurological diseases
Key Partnerships
- Bayer — oncology
- Roche/Genentech — neurology/oncology
- NVIDIA — AI infrastructure
2024 Merger
Announced merger with Exscientia in 2024 — creating one of the largest AI drug discovery companies.
Public Company
Recursion is NASDAQ-listed (ticker: RXRX). Unlike other AI drug discovery startups, it funds publicly.
Strengths
- ✅ Massive automation (1.5M+ experiments/week)
- ✅ Phenomics — image-based drug effect analysis
- ✅ Bayer, Roche, NVIDIA partnerships
- ✅ Exscientia merger for world-leading scale
- ✅ Public company transparency
- ✅ Multiple drug pipelines
Weaknesses
- ❌ Pharma-only, irrelevant to general users
- ❌ Long drug discovery timelines (years for trials)
- ❌ Low success rates (inherent drug discovery challenge)
- ❌ High stock volatility
Official Resources
- Website: https://www.recursion.com
- NASDAQ: RXRX