As of March 31, Recursion Pharmaceuticals had a cash position of $509 million. Following Tuesday’s layoffs, the biotech expects its runway to last into the fourth quarter of 2027.
Recursion Pharmaceuticals will lay off roughly 20% of its workforce, affecting some 160 employees, in a bid to extend its cash runway.
In an SEC filing on Tuesday, the Utah-based biotech announced that it was conducting a “reduction in personnel and infrastructure” as part of an ongoing push to streamline its strategy. The move, Recursion added, would cost around $11 million in one-time charges, primarily related to severance payments and benefits but would allow the company to stay afloat into the fourth quarter of 2027.
Excluding these severance expenses and partnership inflows, Recursion now expects its cash burn this year to be lower than $450 million, further dropping to less than $390 million in 2026, as per its SEC filing.
Recursion revealed last month in its Q1 business report that it had slid further into the red, with a net loss of $203 million in the first quarter, versus $91.4 million during the same period last year. As of March 31, 2025, the company had $509 million in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash. Recursion had over 800 employees at the end of 2024, as per its annual report.
In August 2024, Recursion announced that it was merging with fellow AI specialist Exscientia, a move the companies said would give the combined entity—which still carries the Recursion name—“operational complementarities expected to yield annual synergies in excess of $100 million.”
In practice, this has meant sweeping layoffs and pipeline scale-backs. In November 2024, just months after the merger, Recursion enacted a reduction-in-force initiative that a company spokesperson claimed would affect less than 20% of its employees. A terminated staffer said at the time that both Recursion and Exscientia teams were affected by cuts. Tuesday’s SEC disclosure likewise partly attributed the latest round of layoffs to “post-integration employee transitions.”
Last month, during its first-quarter earnings report, Recursion also announced that it would discontinue the development of several programs, including REC-2282, an oral inhibitor of the HDAC enzyme it claims can cross the blood-brain barrier for the treatment of NF2-mutated meningiomas, and REC-994, a superoxide scavenger small molecule drug being trialed for cerebral cavernous malformation. For both assets, the biotech noted that the “totality of data supports the discontinuation” of development.
Recursion is also shelving REC-3964, an oral non-antibiotic drug for C. difficile infection, for which it will consider out-licensing opportunities.
