Bayer to invest up to $1.5 billion with 'disruptive' Recursion

Germany’s Bayer (BAYN: DE) and Recursion Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: RXRX), a US techbio firm seeking to decode biology to industrialize drug discovery, have updated the focus of their research collaboration to precision oncology.

The oncology-focused collaboration will combine Bayer’s small molecule compound library and expertise in biology and medicinal chemistry, and Recursion’s purpose-built artificial intelligence (AI)-guided drug discovery platform.

"We believe that the next generation of biopharma leaders will operate at the convergence of rigorous science, scaled datasets and accelerated computing"In 2020, the companies initially announced a collaboration focused on digitally-powered drug discovery for fibrotic diseases. At the time, a $50 million investment was made by Leaps by Bayer, the group’s impact investment arm, as part of Recursion's Series D financing round. The deal was expanded in 2021.