Nurix (NRIX.US) skyrockets in pre-market trading! Receives Roche's $2.3 billion acquisition of rights related to blood cancer drug bexobrutideg.

Pharmaceutical giant Roche (RHHBY.US) has agreed to pay up to $2.3 billion to the American biopharmaceutical company Nurix Therapeutics (NRIX.US) to acquire rights to the experimental blood cancer drug bexobrutide. Boosted by this news, Nurix's US stocks surged more than 49% in pre-market trading on Monday. According to the agreement announced on Monday, Nurix will receive a $700 million upfront payment. Roche and Nurix will share development costs and split profits in the US market, while Roche will be responsible for commercializing the therapy outside the US. Both parties expect the transaction to be completed in the third quarter of 2026. This collaboration further underscores Roche's strategy to strengthen its oncology drug portfolio. As several blockbuster drugs are reaching maturity, Roche is seeking new growth opportunities. Roche is betting that bexobrutide can help patients who have not responded to existing therapies. Nurix focuses on discovering, developing, and commercializing oral small molecule therapies that aim to regulate cellular protein levels as a new treatment approach for cancer and immune diseases. The company's pipeline includes targeted protein degraders for Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) and inhibitors of Casitas B-cell lymphoma-B (CBL-B), an E3 ligase that regulates T cell activation. The candidate drug NX-2127 in its protein degradation pipeline is an oral BTK degrader for the treatment of relapsed or refractory B-cell malignancies. Bexobrutide is a novel oral BTK degrader developed by Nurix. Data presented by Nurix at the 2025 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting in December last year showed an objective response rate (ORR) of 83% in 47 evaluable patients with relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) treated with bexobrutide, with a median progression-free survival of 22.1 months and a median duration of response of 20.1 months. These patients had received multiple prior treatments, including covalent and/or non-covalent BTK inhibitors. Early data in the phase 1b cohort showed an ORR of 83.3% in patients treated with 600mg of bexobrutide. The company plans to proceed with the next stage of development using a daily dose of 600mg. In addition, bexobrutide demonstrated anti-cancer activity in a phase 1 clinical trial for patients with Waldenstrm's macroglobulinemia (WM) who had received multiple prior treatments. The ORR was 75% in 28 evaluable WM patients. Nurix's Chief Medical Officer Paula O'Connor stated that the data showed a trend towards durable and deepening response with prolonged treatment, and the drug demonstrated good tolerability, consistent with previous disclosures. The company added that the encouraging efficacy and good tolerability support its continued development. BTK inhibitors are an important therapeutic option for various B-cell hematologic malignancies. However, the emergence of resistance to BTK inhibitors and the revelation of BTK's kinase-independent functions highlight the importance of targeting BTK protein function by other means. Targeted protein degraders against BTK directly induce BTK protein degradation in the proteasome, providing an effective strategy to overcome BTK inhibitor resistance. Roche and Nurix believe that bexobrutide may have advantages over current BTK inhibitors, as it is expected to overcome resistance mutations that occur during treatment.