Recursion, a clinical-stage biotechnology company based in Salt Lake City, has announced a leadership transition that becomes effective Jan. 1. Recursion’s board has named current chief R&D director and commercial officer Najat Khan as CEO, president and a board member. She will succeed co-founder and CEO Chris Gibson, who will transition to chairman of the board and an interim executive advisor.
Rob Hershberg, Recursion’s current chairman, will become vice chairman and lead independent director.
“The planned appointments reflect our shared commitment to continuity, collaboration, and the next phase of Recursion’s journey evolving the OS platform, advancing its pipeline and bringing transformational medicines to patients,” Recursion’s board said in a statement.
“The board’s unanimous decision to appoint Najat Khan as Recursion’s next CEO is a clear reflection of our confidence in her strategic acumen and proven track record of converting new science into tangible value,” said Hershberg. “This transition has been planned to ensure absolute continuity of Recursion’s mission and vision. Chris’s guidance as our new chairman guarantees we retain his unparalleled expertise in the techbio space. We thank Chris for his exceptional leadership for the past 12 years, during which he transformed Recursion from an ambitious idea to the pioneer of a new sector, and we are united behind and excited for Najat to lead this next, critical chapter of execution and value creation for the company.”
“After partnering with Najat Khan for the past 18 months, I have absolute faith that she is the right leader for Recursion’s next phase,” said Gibson. “Her unique and exceptional combination of strategic insight, scientific rigor, bold vision and commitment to leveraging technology to shift the way we discover treatments for patients through our platform is what’s needed for the company’s evolution.”
“I’m deeply honored that I will be stepping into the role of CEO and president and build on the remarkable foundation established by Chris Gibson and the visionary founders of Recursion,” said Khan. “Powered by exceptional people and united by a bold mission to decode biology to radically improve patients’ lives, Recursion has built something differentiated: a platform that unites biology, chemistry and AI at unprecedented scale, a pipeline with meaningful near-term readouts, and a culture defined by curiosity, courage and conviction.”
Prior to joining Recursion, Khan was chief data science officer and senior vice president for R&D at Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine. Earlier in her career, she was a senior principal and partner with The Boston Consulting Group, working with leading biopharma, biotech, payer and provider organizations on strategy and operations. She holds a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania.