After four years and one candidate already optioned since Gilead Sciences and Nurix Therapeutics first joined up to develop targeted protein degraders, the biopharma announced Tuesday it wants more of the modality.
The partners agreed to add two extra years to their collaboration, which leverages Nurix’s drug discovery platform to identify compounds that use E3 ligases to induce degradation of certain targets to treat cancer and inflammatory diseases. Under the deal, Gilead can license any of the resulting candidates, and Nurix can choose to co-develop two programmes.
As part of Tuesday’s deal expansion, Nurix will receive a $15-million extension fee and remain eligible for up to $73.5 million in preclinical milestones and licensing fees, and up to $1.7 billion in development, regulatory, and sales milestones, plus royalties.
“Gilead’s extension of the research period of this agreement is a testament to the productivity of our collaboration to date,” said Gwenn Hansen, Nurix’s chief scientific officer. “With this extended research term, we aim to deliver multiple additional clinical candidates to advance a portfolio of novel targeted protein degrader therapies with Gilead.”
The pair first linked up in 2019, with Gilead paying $45 million upfront and Nurix standing to receive up to $2.3 billion in total milestones.
Nurix has since received $70 million comprising research payments and a $20 million licence option fee for IRAK4 protein degrader GS-6791 (formerly NX-0479), which Gilead exercised last year.
Over the past five years, the San Francisco-based biotech has proven to be one of the most popular protein degradation partners of choice. In addition to its collaboration with Gilead, Nurix boasts high-dollar deals with Sanofi and Seagen to develop degraders using its DELigase discovery platform and E3 ligase portfolio. For more, see Spotlight On: BMS leads big pharma in protein degradation deals.