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Recursion OS and pipeline
Courtesy of Recursion · Press kit, editorial use (opens recursion.com)

Recursion OS and pipeline

by RecursionUS

ProtoStage 2 of 5

Several early cancer and rare-disease trials; partnered with Roche/Genentech and Sanofi.

Updated 5 Aug 2026Checked 25 Sep0 updates this week

Milestones

Next · Show trial results from AI-found drugs
  1. BioHive-2 AI supercomputer built with NVIDIA2024Complete.
  2. Drug list cut to prioritiesMay 2025Complete.
  3. Show trial results from AI-found drugsNowCurrent milestone.

Most important updates

  • 5 Aug 2026
  • 6 May 2026
  • May 2025

Current obstacles

  • Proving it in patientsSeveral earlier drugs were dropped, and no Recursion drug has been approved yet.

Physics limits

  • Cells in a dish are not a patientLab cells lack the tissues, immune system, blood flow and decades of disease history of a real body. Signals found in dishes often vanish in people, so trials remain the real test.
  • Looking alike is not acting alikeTwo changes can make cells look similar for different reasons. Image similarity suggests a link, but each one still needs direct experiments to confirm.
  • Binding a target is not the same as a safe, working drugWhether a molecule is absorbed, reaches the right tissue, avoids toxicity and actually changes the disease depends on whole-body biology that no current model predicts. About 90% of drugs entering trials fail.

How it works

3 parts
Cells stained with Cell Painting dyes (a public dataset): Recursion's robots photograph millions of wells like this for its AI
Cells stained with Cell Painting dyes (a public dataset): Recursion's robots photograph millions of wells like this for its AIPhoto: Wawer et al. · CC0 (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
Perturb

Change one thing per well

Robots knock out genes with CRISPR or add compounds to human cells in millions of tiny wells each week.

Picture

Stain and photograph

Dyes light up parts of each cell (nucleus, mitochondria and more), and microscopes capture images of how the cell looks.

Map

AI groups similar effects

Models turn each image into numbers. A drug that makes cells look like a gene knockout hints that it acts on that gene's pathway.

Update log

3 updates

Wed 5 Aug

  • Minor: PressPartnership

Wed 6 May

  • Minor: PressTest

May 2025

  • Minor: FilingOther

About Recursion

The team behind Recursion OS and pipeline

Recursion

AI drug discovery from cell images

Salt Lake City company that photographs millions of cell experiments, then uses AI to spot patterns and find drug candidates. It merged with Exscientia in Nov 2024 and, after cuts in 2025, has a new CEO focused on proving results in trials.

  • Najat Khan succeeded co-founder Chris Gibson as CEO on 1 Jan 2026.
  • Merged with Exscientia in Nov 2024, adding AI-driven chemistry to its cell-imaging platform.
  • Partners include Roche/Genentech and Sanofi; its own drug list was cut in 2025.

recursion.com (opens recursion.com)Company profile →

Founded
201313 yrs
Headquarters
United States
Status
Public
Listed
RXRX (opens google.com)NASDAQ
Valuation
public
Works in
BiotechAI drug discoveryAI
Coverage
1 program · 5 updateslatest 5 Aug 2026checked 25 Sep
People
Najat Khan (opens recursion.com)CEOChris GibsonCo-founder
Primer