Welcome to Talking Precision Medicine (TPM podcast) — the podcast in which we discuss the future of healthcare and health technology, and how advances in data and data science are fueling the next industrial revolution.
Today’s guest is Najat Khan, Chief R&D Officer and Chief Commercial Officer at Recursion Pharmaceuticals. Recursion is widely recognized as one of the most visible—and so far, most successful—companies to emerge from the tech-bio movement. Many consider it the current industry leader. It has become an iconic name in the field of artificial intelligence for drug discovery.
Come on in and have a listen.
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Episode highlights:
Recursion’s end-to-end AI approach
“Recursion is a company that’s leveraging AI and an end-to-end AI tech stack to transform how medicines are made—from discovery to development—to radically transform the lives of the patients that we serve.”
- Recursion’s AI-powered platform spans the entire drug development process, from decoding biology to designing molecules and optimizing clinical trials.
- The company has built one of the world’s largest multimodal datasets, integrating over 60 petabytes of proprietary data, including genetic, transcriptomic, and multi-omic patient data.
- Its expanding pipeline includes over 30 programs across oncology, immunology, neuroscience, and rare diseases, with 10 in clinical development and 10 partnered with major pharma companies.
From tech startup to drug company
“Recursion started from the ground up, native to AI, to develop better medicines. That’s quite unique.”
- Recursion has evolved from a tech-driven startup to a full-fledged drug company, integrating AI across all stages of R&D.
- Najat Khan joined Recursion in summer 2024 to lead its R&D and commercial strategy, leveraging her background in organic chemistry, computer science, and business.
- The company’s merger with Exscientia has strengthened its AI-driven medicinal chemistry capabilities, enabling faster compound synthesis and drug candidate selection.
The role of AI in drug development
“In order to truly be end-to-end, you need proprietary data that’s clean, reproducible, and can actually be leveraged to develop the algorithms that drive insights.”
- AI is not just a tool at Recursion—it is central to drug discovery, accelerating target identification, molecule design, and clinical trial optimization.
- The industry standard for lead compound development requires 2,500 to 4,000 molecules. Recursion achieves this with only 200 compounds, dramatically shortening timelines.
- AI is also improving clinical trial design by identifying the right patients, predicting responders, and reducing trial failure rates.
Strategic partnerships
“Smart companies focus on where they have the right to win. And then they ask, how do we win?”
- Recursion actively seeks partnerships that complement its strengths, integrating best-in-class AI, chemistry, and clinical technologies.
- Key acquisitions include Cyclica and Valence, bringing top-tier machine learning talent in drug design.
- Recent collaborations with Tempus and Helix are expanding multi-omic patient stratification capabilities, helping to predict treatment responses.
- Recursion also leverages NVIDIA’s high-performance computing, operating one of the fastest supercomputers in life sciences.
AI in pharma
“In tech bio companies, AI isn’t a ‘nice to have’—it’s the core of everything we do.”
- Large pharma companies still treat AI as an optional add-on, while AI-native companies like Recursion integrate it as a foundational technology.
- Najat believes that as soon as AI-developed drugs show superior clinical outcomes, industry-wide adoption will accelerate.
A look into the future
“If we do things right, Recursion will be known as the company that categorically showed examples of medicines that others could not have made. Better, faster.”
- Najat envisions Recursion leading the next era of pharma, bending success rates beyond the industry’s 10% drug approval benchmark.
- The company’s goal is not just to create AI-driven drugs but to commercialize them, disrupting traditional pharma models.
- She believes Recursion’s AI-first approach will redefine how medicines are discovered, developed, and delivered to patients worldwide.
This has been Talking Precision Medicine. Please subscribe and share our podcast with your colleagues, leave a comment or review, and stay tuned for the next episode. Until then you can explore our TPM podcast archive and listen to interesting guests from our past conversations.
