Current Roles and Responsibilities
Najat Khan, PhD serves simultaneously as Chief Research & Development Officer (Chief R&D Officer) and Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) at Recursion Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage TechBio company headquartered in New York. She joined Recursion in 2024, bringing extensive experience spanning drug discovery, pharmaceutical development, commercialization, and data science. Notably, Najat also serves on Recursion’s Board of Directors, with her directorship commencing in 2024.
In her dual executive roles, Najat is tasked with leading Recursion’s research pipeline innovation and commercial strategy. She oversees critical AI-driven R&D initiatives designed to transform how medicines are created and delivered to market. Her leadership is central to Recursion’s strategic focus on leveraging advanced computational methods and AI to accelerate drug discovery and development cycles.
Expertise and Technical Focus
Dr. Khan’s expertise lies at the intersection of biological, chemical, medical sciences, and computational/data science disciplines. Her core competencies include:
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML): Focus on methodologies and applications across multiple modalities such as natural language processing (NLP), computer vision, and multi-modal data integration.
- Programming and Data Science Tools: Skilled in coding with R and Python tailored to AI/ML pipelines.
- Foundation Models for Science: Key driver behind Recursion’s breakthroughs in foundation models, including leading the development and deployment of large-scale biomolecular AI models for drug discovery.
One of her notable accomplishments is guiding Recursion’s foundation model efforts, exemplified by Boltz-2, an open-source biomolecular AI model co-developed with MIT that achieves near-FEP (Free Energy Perturbation) accuracy in molecular binding affinity and structure prediction at a 1000x speed improvement, profoundly enhancing scalable virtual screening in pharmaceutical development. Recursion’s foundation models have recently gained industry recognition including sweeping top placements at the Foundation Models for Science workshop (NeurIPS 2024).
In addition, Najat oversees disruptive AI innovations such as the agentic large language model LOWE, designed to orchestrate and automate complex drug discovery workflows.
Professional Background and Recognition
Prior to her tenure at Recursion, Najat Khan held senior leadership positions in data science and R&D at large pharmaceutical organizations, including Chief Data Science Officer and Global Head of Strategy and Operations at Janssen Pharmaceuticals (Johnson & Johnson). Her transition from Big Pharma to TechBio underscores a significant shift toward integrating AI technologies into early-stage drug development.
She holds a B.A. in Computational Chemistry with a minor in Business/Economics from Colgate University, supplemented by advanced certifications in AI/ML. Although formal educational details such as her PhD granting institution or thesis specifics are not publicly detailed, her professional record reflects high-level scientific acumen combined with strategic and commercial expertise.
Najat Khan was named an Uber Elite 2025 winner by PM360 magazine, affirming her leadership impact in the industry. She frequently participates in high-profile scientific forums, including presentations at Download Day 2024 and the BIO International Convention, discussing Recursion's advances in AI-driven R&D and computational drug discovery.
Company Context and Strategic Initiatives
Under Najat’s R&D and commercial leadership, Recursion has concentrated on portfolio prioritization and pipeline pruning to drive disciplined innovation despite broader industry challenges and a recent workforce reduction of approximately 20% announced in June 2025.
Recursion’s strategic roadmap emphasizes scalable AI-driven platforms that integrate large volumes of experimental and real-world data with proprietary algorithms to accelerate candidate identification and optimization. Najat’s stewardship of these efforts bridges technology, biology, and commercialization, positioning the company at the forefront of the TechBio revolution.
Her public communications highlight the importance of multilingual AI approaches for cellular microscopy data analysis and the transformative potential of open-source models like Boltz-2 to democratize and accelerate drug discovery.
Relevance to Foundation Models in TechBio
Najat Khan’s leadership is pivotal in advancing foundation models specialized for scientific applications, particularly in predicting biomolecular structures, binding affinities, and orchestrating drug development workflows through AI. She actively promotes open-source initiatives, enhancing industry collaboration and accelerating collective progress.
Her emphasis on integrating large-scale single-cell RNA sequencing data and multimodal AI techniques demonstrates advanced application of foundation models to better understand disease biology at a molecular and cellular level, offering actionable insights for therapeutic development.
This profiling reveals Najat Khan as a highly technical, strategically astute executive driving Recursion’s AI-powered R&D and commercial efforts, with direct influence on the company’s foundational AI models shaping the future of drug discovery. Her combination of scientific depth, operational leadership, and engagement with cutting-edge AI positions her as a key decision-maker for collaborations involving foundation models and AI in the pharmaceutical sector.
