Roche is wagering billions of dollars on a medicine that trashes a troublesome protein instead of stifling its activity.
The Swiss drugmaker on Monday reached a deal with Nurix Therapeutics to codevelop a therapy called bexobrutideg that’s nearing late-stage testing. Roche will pay Nurix $700 million up front and, in return, will split U.S. rights to the drug while gaining full ownership elsewhere. Roche will also cover 60% of the development costs and hand Nurix royalties on non-U.S. sales.
Nurix could ultimately receive up to $2.3 billion if a variety of regulatory and sales milestones are met, Roche said.
The deal represents the biopharmaceutical industry’s latest bet on what’s known as “targeted protein degradation.” Medicines are typically designed to lock onto a protein target to smother or amplify it. Protein degraders, by contrast, hijack a cell’s internal garbage disposal system to eliminate those targets altogether.
Proponents of degraders point to the technology as a way to get after proteins once thought to be “undruggable.” But the approach is also being used to destroy proteins more traditional methods can effectively block, in the hopes that it might yield superior drugs.
