Recursion, a clinical-stage TechBio company, has entered into a strategic partnership with HealthVerity to license real-world data (RWD) that will enhance its clinical trial design and analytics capabilities. The agreement, announced on April 16, 2025, will allow Recursion to integrate de-identified data from over 340 million covered lives in the United States into its advanced Recursion OS platform.
This collaboration represents a significant step toward data-driven clinical development in the pharmaceutical industry. By incorporating HealthVerity's comprehensive real-world data into its machine learning and AI systems, Recursion aims to gain deeper insights into patient populations, enhance trial design, improve feasibility assessments, and optimize clinical operations workflows.
"Our partnership with Recursion underscores the transformative potential of real-world data in driving smarter clinical trials," said Andrew Kress, CEO of HealthVerity. "By providing seamless access to the industry's most comprehensive and interoperable real-world data, we empower innovators like Recursion to make data-driven decisions that streamline clinical development."
Advancing AI-Driven Drug Development
Recursion's approach to drug discovery and development relies heavily on integrating diverse datasets and AI/ML models to identify novel insights into human biology and molecule design. The company's Recursion OS platform continuously generates one of the world's largest proprietary biological and chemical datasets, which is analyzed using sophisticated machine-learning algorithms.
The addition of HealthVerity's real-world data is expected to significantly strengthen Recursion's capabilities in several key areas:
- Predicting patient responses to potential therapies
- Refining study designs through data-driven insights
- Ensuring clinical trial sites are optimally positioned to meet enrollment goals
- Supporting in silico simulations for trial optimization
- Accelerating patient recruitment through more targeted approaches
- Including traditionally underserved populations in clinical research
- Generating stronger evidence to inform development and regulatory decisions
"With the majority of the industry's time and resources focused on clinical trials, we see a significant opportunity to transform how clinical development is designed and executed," explained Najat Khan, PhD, Chief R&D Officer and Chief Commercial Officer at Recursion. "By integrating privacy-compliant real-world data from HealthVerity into Recursion OS, we are advancing our mission to optimize trial design through in silico simulations, accelerate recruitment through a patient-centric approach that includes underserved populations, and generate stronger evidence to inform development and regulatory decisions."
Privacy and Compliance at the Forefront
A critical aspect of this partnership is HealthVerity's approach to data acquisition and governance, which ensures compliance with HIPAA and other regulatory frameworks while maintaining the highest standards of patient privacy. The company has built what it describes as the nation's largest healthcare data ecosystem, enabling precise patient journey insights that support various aspects of drug development.
These insights will be particularly valuable for:
- Clinical development planning and execution
- Regulatory submissions requiring real-world evidence
- Post-market studies and surveillance activities
Industrializing Clinical Development
The pharmaceutical industry has long faced challenges with the time and cost associated with clinical trials. By leveraging high-quality, linked data assets, Recursion aims to industrialize clinical development, potentially reducing costs and accelerating the development of novel therapeutics.
This approach aligns with broader industry trends toward using real-world data to complement traditional clinical trial data, providing a more comprehensive view of patient experiences and treatment outcomes. The FDA and other regulatory bodies have increasingly recognized the value of real-world evidence in supporting regulatory decisions, making partnerships like this one particularly timely.
Recursion's computational capabilities, which include ownership and operation of one of the world's most powerful supercomputers, position the company to effectively analyze and derive insights from the massive datasets provided by HealthVerity. This computational power, combined with the company's wet lab capabilities that can run millions of experiments weekly, creates a unique environment for integrating real-world data into the drug development process.
The partnership between HealthVerity and Recursion represents a significant advancement in the application of real-world data to clinical trial design and execution, with potential benefits for patients through faster development of more effective therapies.
