Recursion signs partnership that could net company billions

Recursion Pharmaceuticals Inc. has announced it has formed a drug-discovery collaboration with Swiss drug and diagnostics giant Roche AG, and its U.S. subsidiary Genentech, that is potentially worth several billion dollars to the Salt Lake City-based clinical-stage biotechnology company in the next 10 years.

Recursion said it will work with the research and development units of both Roche and Genentech to use its Recursion Operating System to more rapidly identify novel targets and advance medicines in key areas of neuroscience, as well as in an oncology indication.

The announcement follows a recent news release that Recursion secured an extension of its partnership with another European pharmaceutical mega-company, Bayer AG, for work on fibrosis diseases in a deal that could earn a value north of $1 billion. Recursion also generated over $500 million in an April public stock offering and announced plans to double its 100,000-square-foot downtown Salt Lake headquarters facility at The Gateway complex. The company said it has added about 200 employees in the past 12 months and currently has a workforce of nearly 400 with 100 positions still open.

Recursion said it will receive an upfront payment of $150 million, adding that Roche and Genentech may initiate up to 40 programs, each of which could yield more than $300 million in development, commercialization and sales milestones, along with royalties on sales.

Recursion reported a company value in cash, cash equivalents and investments of $578.9 million as of Sept. 30.

Recursion said the companies will use insights generated from the collaboration’s maps of human cellular biology to find and develop medicines against novel targets in neuroscience and oncology for up to a decade or longer, adding that Recursion’s other programs already underway in oncology or neuroscience aren’t part of the collaboration.