RECURSION PHARMACEUTICALS, INC.

Sanofi options potential first-in-class immunology development candidate

Sanofi has optioned the first development candidate from the two companies’ multi-program research collaboration. The candidate has now been added to Sanofi’s development pipeline and is expected to enter Phase 1 clinical trials in 2027, with Sanofi funding and leading further development and commercialization to advance the program toward patients.

The option triggered a $10 million milestone payment to Recursion, bringing total upfront and milestone payments achieved from Sanofi under the collaboration to $144 million; Recursion is eligible for more than $300 million in additional milestones under the program, with double digit royalties on net product sales, if approved.

The potential first-in-class oral small molecule was designed to achieve a differentiated profile against a challenging dual target implicated in inflammatory disease. Optimizing for this target pair required navigating complex and competing chemistry constraints to achieve the desired balance of drug-like properties. The candidate was delivered by the combination of Recursion’s integrated AI-enabled drug design platform and small-molecule chemistry capabilities with Sanofi’s deep expertise in drug discovery and immunology. Recursion applied multiple computational design approaches across iterative cycles of prediction, chemical design, synthesis, and experimental validation to rapidly explore and optimize a complex chemical space.

With the first development candidate optioned, the collaboration has now achieved six progress-based milestones across five programs. Additional programs across the collaboration continue to advance. Over the next 12 months, other programs in the joint portfolio have the potential to reach development candidate and other progress-based milestones.

To learn more about this milestone, read the press release.