Nurix Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing targeted protein modulation drugs to treat cancer and inflammatory diseases, announced that Gilead Sciences has extended the research term of the companies’ ongoing collaboration by an additional two years.
 
Under the collaboration, Nurix is deploying its drug discovery platform to identify novel agents that use E3 ligases to induce degradation of specified drug targets. Gilead has an option to license resulting drug candidates and Nurix retains co-development and co-detail options on up to two programs in the U.S. For those programs that Nurix opts in to co-develop and co-detail, the parties will split development costs and profits and losses, and Nurix will be eligible to receive royalties on ex-U.S. sales and milestones.
 
Upon signing the agreement in 2019, Gilead made an upfront payment of $45 million. Nurix has received an additional $70 million including research milestones, the IRAK4 degrader license option exercise payment and additional payments. In connection with this announcement, Nurix will receive a $15 million extension fee and remains eligible for up to $73.5 million in preclinical milestones and potential future licensing payments, and up to a total of $1.7 billion in potential future development, regulatory, and sales milestones as well as royalties on future products.
 
“Gilead’s extension of the research period of this agreement is a testament to the productivity of our collaboration to date. Most importantly, it increases the opportunity for additional clinical candidates and associated milestones to emerge from our work together with the Gilead team,” said Gwenn M. Hansen, Ph.D., chief scientific officer of Nurix. “Progress in the collaboration has already yielded the first development candidate GS-6791 (NX-0479), a potent, selective, oral IRAK4 degrader that has potential applications in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory diseases, which Gilead licensed in March 2023. 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.”