Recursion vs Xaira Therapeutics (2026)
Both combine large scale biological data generation with AI models across discovery. Recursion runs automated labs at up to two million experiments a week, trains foundation models on more than 50 petabytes of its own data, publishes its methods and datasets, and has several programs in clinical studies. Xaira, launched in 2024 with more than $1 billion committed, builds on protein design work from David Baker's laboratory, including people who developed RFdiffusion and RFantibody, and aims to apply AI end to end across discovery and development. It has released datasets, including X-Atlas/Pisces behind its X-Cell model. Recursion has the longer published and clinical record; Xaira is earlier, with a design team drawn from the RFdiffusion and RFantibody work.
- Automated labs running up to two million experiments a week, feeding foundation models trained on more than 50 petabytes of the company's own data.
- Published methods and public releases, including Phenom, MolE, TxPert, RxRx3 and OpenPhenom.
- Seven internal programs in oncology and rare disease, several in clinical studies.
- A protein design team from David Baker's laboratory, including developers of RFdiffusion and RFantibody.
- Released datasets, including X-Atlas/Pisces behind its X-Cell model.
- An aim to apply AI end to end across discovery and development, backed by more than $1 billion committed at launch.
This comparison is published by AI Health Index, an independent research platform that compares healthcare AI vendors objectively. Recursion and Xaira Therapeutics are each graded against the same capability taxonomy, from each vendor's own public materials and the regulatory record, under the AI Health Index verification standard. No vendor pays for placement, and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Plain facts
| Fact | Recursion | Xaira Therapeutics |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | Drug Discovery AI | Drug Discovery AI |
| Founded | Not recorded | 2023 |
| Headquarters | Salt Lake City, UT | South San Francisco, CA |
| Website | recursion.com | xaira.com |
Side by Side
Select any grade to read the note behind it.
Product updates
The latest logged changes from each vendor, newest first, each linked to its source.
Xaira Therapeutics
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Product / capability
Xaira described X-Automate, which joins automation workcells, X-Bot, a camera guided robotic arm Xaira built from inexpensive commercial parts, and X-Scientist, which uses a vision language model to read the scene and run instruments.
Source -
Product / capability
Xaira introduced X-Scientist, its internal research platform, in which a lead AI agent plans, delegates and checks the work of worker agents that call Xaira's X-Cell, X-Design and X-Patient models through APIs and MCP servers.
Source -
Model / architecture
Xaira reported results from the Vega class of its X-Design models, which designed antibodies zero shot, with no data from earlier campaigns.
Source
Each vendor in one paragraph
Written to be quoted whole. Each paragraph opens the AI Health Index profile of the vendor: what the product is, who buys it and what it does.
Recursion (Nasdaq: RXRX) is a Salt Lake City drug discovery company built around the Recursion OS, which pairs automated wet labs running up to 2 million experiments a week with machine learning foundation models trained on the resulting 50 petabyte plus dataset of cellular images, transcriptomics and chemistry, in a loop where predictions are tested in the lab and fed back into training. Its combination with Exscientia in November 2024 added generative chemistry design and automated synthesis.
Source: AI Health Index, September 2026
South San Francisco company founded in 2023 and launched publicly in April 2024 with more than $1 billion in committed funding, co led by ARCH Venture Partners and Foresite Labs. The stated aim is end to end application of AI across drug discovery and development, combining AI methods research, large scale biological data generation and therapeutic product development, with predictive and agentic models across the whole process.
Source: AI Health Index, September 2026
Questions buyers ask
How do Recursion and Xaira Therapeutics work with the EHR?
For Recursion, the platform runs on the company's own experimental data and on licensed datasets, including human genomic and clinical data from outside data partners, and its outputs feed internal and partnered programs.
With Xaira Therapeutics, the one thing that does move outward is a dataset published for download, which is distribution rather than integration, and the company describes generating clinical data without naming any system it would come from. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 28, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How are Recursion and Xaira Therapeutics priced and sold?
Recursion sells no software license; it works with pharmaceutical partners through discovery collaborations and also develops its own pipeline, and the partners page describes pharmaceutical, technology and data partnerships.
For Xaira Therapeutics, the published datasets are free to use, the one thing open to anyone today. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 28, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How do Recursion and Xaira Therapeutics handle patient data?
Recursion's home page features a post on "leveraging the power of patient data" in drug discovery, and its data corpus includes material licensed from companies holding human genomic and clinical data. No published statement covers consent provenance for that licensed data, the de-identification standard applied, permitted secondary uses, retention, or what happens to trained model representations if a license ends.
In Xaira Therapeutics' case, the only privacy document is a website privacy policy (effective 1 January 2025) covering personal data gathered when someone accesses the company's services and website, with a data security section written for that material. The company's stated approach is to generate biological and clinical data at scale and to treat every laboratory and clinical experiment as a data generating exercise. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 28, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Which settings and specialties do Recursion and Xaira Therapeutics cover?
For Recursion, the internal pipeline concentrates on oncology (solid tumors, lymphoma, B-cell malignancies, small cell lung cancer) and rare disease (familial adenomatous polyposis, hypophosphatasia), with clinical studies running in both.
With Xaira Therapeutics, the company describes an end to end scope across drug discovery and development and multiple modalities, with a therapeutic focus in inflammatory and immunological disease and antibodies as the starting point, and its published model works across sixteen cellular contexts. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 28, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Related comparisons
Other published head to head assessments involving these vendors or their closest peers. The full set for this category is on the Drug Discovery AI page.
Both records were reviewed on this site in September 2026. Neither publishes prices.
Ask both which of their published results came from models a partner would use.