Nvidia to Invest $50 Million in Recursion for AI Drug Discovery
July 12 (Reuters) – Nvidia, a leading chip designer, has announced a $50 million investment into Recursion Pharmaceuticals, a biotech firm focused on using artificial intelligence (AI) for drug discovery. This news has caused Recursion’s shares to surge by approximately 62%.
Recursion will utilize its extensive biological and chemical datasets, which exceed 23,000 terabytes, to train AI models on Nvidia’s cloud platform. The collaboration aims to accelerate the training of Recursion’s AI models for drug discovery.
Nvidia, known for its dominance in the field of AI, plans to license these trained models to biotech companies through BioNeMo, its generative AI cloud service for drug discovery, which was introduced earlier this year.
It is unclear whether Nvidia will also acquire a stake in Recursion, as the biotech firm has not provided any clarification on this matter.
Recursion operates the Recursion OS platform, granting drug developers access to the datasets necessary for designing and developing therapeutics. This investment from Nvidia further strengthens Recursion’s AI focus following its acquisition of two AI-driven drug discovery companies for $87.5 million in May.
Recursion intends to leverage Nvidia’s software to support its own pipeline and that of its partners, including major pharmaceutical companies like Bayer and Roche.
Currently, Recursion is conducting human trials for five of its drugs, including a candidate in mid-stage trials for the treatment of a neurovascular disease caused by malformation of small blood vessels in the brain.
Prominent backers of Recursion, in addition to Nvidia, include Abu Dhabi’s sovereign investor Mubadala and UK-based investment firm Baillie Gifford & Co.
Shares of Recursion surged to $10.99 in late morning trading, accompanied by heavy volumes. If the current gains persist throughout the day, it will mark the best performance for the company since its listing in 2021.
Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru and Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Mariam Sunny in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar and Sriraj Kalluvila
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