Company Description
Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: RXRX) is a clinical-stage TechBio company in the biotechnology research and development space. The company describes its mission as decoding biology to radically improve lives. Recursion integrates biology, chemistry, automation, data science and engineering to industrialize drug discovery and development, positioning itself at the intersection of technology and life sciences.
Central to Recursion’s approach is the Recursion OS, a platform built across diverse technologies that continuously generates one of the world’s largest proprietary biological and chemical datasets. According to company disclosures, this platform uses sophisticated machine-learning algorithms to distill from its dataset a collection of trillions of searchable relationships across biology and chemistry. These relationships are designed to be unconstrained by human bias, with the aim of surfacing non-obvious connections that can be translated into therapeutic programs.
The company emphasizes both massive experimental scale and massive computational scale. Recursion reports the ability to run up to millions of wet lab experiments weekly, and notes that it owns and operates one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. By uniting high-throughput experimentation with large-scale computing and AI models, Recursion seeks to advance the future of medicine through a platform-driven model rather than a single-asset focus.
Business Focus and TechBio Model
Recursion characterizes itself as a clinical-stage company, indicating that its programs have advanced into human studies. Its work spans internal drug discovery and development programs as well as partnered discovery collaborations with large biopharmaceutical companies. The company highlights collaborations that involve large-scale phenotypic mapping ("phenomaps") and target discovery, particularly in areas such as neuroscience, oncology, immunology and gastrointestinal oncology, using the Recursion OS to generate and interpret high-dimensional biological data.
Within its internal pipeline, Recursion has disclosed multiple investigational programs that were generated or advanced using insights from the Recursion OS. These include:
- REC-4881, an investigational allosteric MEK1/2 inhibitor being studied in the TUPELO Phase 1b/2 trial for familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP), a hereditary colorectal cancer syndrome. The company describes REC-4881 as the first MEK1/2 inhibitor advanced clinically for FAP and notes that the program represents a full validation cycle of the Recursion OS, from unbiased phenotypic screening to clinical data.
- REC-617, a precision-designed oral CDK7 inhibitor evaluated in the ELUCIDATE Phase 1/2 trial in patients with advanced solid tumors and in combination regimens in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. Recursion reports that REC-617 was designed using its generative AI and active learning platform.
- REC-1245, a potential first-in-class oral RBM39 degrader being studied in the Phase 1/2 DAHLIA trial in patients with advanced solid tumors. The company states that REC-1245 was identified using phenomap-derived insight and is intended to selectively impair alternative splicing to impact DNA damage response pathways.
- REC-102, an ENPP1 inhibitor for hypophosphatasia (HPP), which Recursion describes as a potential first oral disease-modifying treatment for this rare genetic disorder. The company has acquired full rights to this program from a joint venture.
- REC-7735, a precision-designed PI3Kα H1047R inhibitor generated using the Recursion OS, which is in preclinical development with the goal of addressing tumors harboring this mutation.
These programs illustrate Recursion’s stated strategy of using its OS to identify mechanisms, design molecules, and select patient populations based on high-dimensional phenotypic and multi-omic data, as well as real-world evidence analyzed through its ClinTech capabilities.
Platform and Data Capabilities
Recursion describes Recursion OS 2.0 as a platform that integrates AI across multimodal biology, precision design, and clinical development. The company reports that the platform supports applications across biology, chemistry and clinical development, including:
- High-content cellular phenomics driven by AI, used to distinguish diseased from healthy cellular states and to identify compounds that rescue disease phenotypes.
- Generative AI and active learning tools for ligand and small-molecule design, such as the Boltz-2 model for binding affinity prediction.
- A ClinTech platform that incorporates large-scale real-world evidence, including linked patient datasets and physician notes, to inform indication selection, trial design, eligibility criteria and contextualization of single-arm studies.
The company has highlighted the use of these capabilities to build large-scale phenotypic maps, including whole-genome knockout phenomaps in induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neural cells and gastrointestinal oncology-specific maps. These maps are used both for internal programs and for partnered discovery efforts.
Partnerships and Collaborations
Recursion reports multiple long-term collaborations with major biopharmaceutical companies. In its public updates, the company notes:
- A collaboration and license agreement with Genentech, Inc. and F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd focused on neuroscience and gastrointestinal oncology, under which Recursion has delivered whole-genome phenotypic maps, including a microglia map of brain immune cells. The company has disclosed milestone payments associated with the acceptance of these maps.
- A multi-target collaboration with Sanofi for oncology and immunology programs, leveraging Recursion OS 2.0, including phenomics, to identify and advance potential first-in-class or best-in-class programs.
- Collaborations with other pharmaceutical partners such as Bayer and Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany in precision oncology and target discovery, where Recursion’s platform is used to identify and progress programs against previously challenging targets.
These collaborations are presented by the company as both validation of its platform and as a way to extend the reach of its technology into disease areas and indications that it may not pursue independently.
Geographic Footprint and Sector Positioning
Recursion is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, where it is described as a founding member of BioHive, the Utah life sciences industry collective. The company also reports offices in Montréal, New York, London, and the Oxford area. Its stock trades on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol RXRX.
Within the broader biotechnology and professional, scientific, and technical services sector, Recursion presents itself as a TechBio company that unites biology, chemistry and AI at scale. Rather than focusing solely on traditional wet-lab discovery, the company’s disclosures emphasize its combination of large proprietary datasets, supercomputing infrastructure and machine-learning models to support both discovery and development decisions.
Corporate Governance and Capital Markets Activity
Recursion is a public company subject to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reporting requirements. Its filings describe activities such as:
- Regular quarterly reports of financial results and business updates.
- Use of an automatic shelf registration statement on Form S-3ASR to support offerings and the registration of shares issued in connection with collaborations and acquisitions.
- Unregistered sales of equity securities in connection with transactions such as the acquisition of membership interests in a joint venture and the issuance of shares for license fees under a master agreement.
- Annual meetings of stockholders addressing director elections, executive compensation advisory votes and auditor ratification.
The company has also disclosed leadership transitions, including a plan for its Chief Research and Development Officer and Chief Commercial Officer to become Chief Executive Officer and President, with the prior CEO transitioning to Chair of the Board. These changes are documented in its current reports on Form 8-K.
Use Cases for Investors and Observers
For investors and analysts researching RXRX stock, Recursion’s disclosures highlight several themes: a platform-centric TechBio model, a pipeline of clinical and preclinical programs derived from that platform, and multiple large-pharma collaborations that rely on Recursion OS-generated datasets and insights. The company’s emphasis on large-scale experimentation, supercomputing resources and AI-driven phenomics provides context for understanding its research and development spending, partnership structures and long-term strategy.