Nurix Therapeutics is trimming its workforce not long after launching a pivotal phase 2 trial for its lead cancer asset.
“Nurix regularly reviews its operations to ensure we are effectively prioritizing the programs that have the greatest potential to advance our science and maximize the value of our pipeline,” Kris Fortner, the company’s senior director of corporate communications and investor relations, told Fierce Biotech in a statement.
“As part of this ongoing effort, we have implemented a small, targeted reduction in force to align our resources with our strategic priorities and support the continued progression of our clinical and research programs.”
The company declined to disclose how many employees were affected by the workforce reduction but added that no programs have been cut or paused.
The Bay Area biotech launched a phase 2 trial of bexobrutideg in patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia on Oct. 22. Bexobrutideg is an oral small molecule designed to degrade Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK), a well-known cancer driver that was first successfully targeted by AbbVie and Johnson & Johnson’s Imbruvica (ibrutinib).
Nurix’s focus is patients whose cancer has not responded to treatment with existing BTK inhibitors, like Imbruvica or Eli Lilly’s Jaypirca (pirtobrutinib), or B-cell lymphoma 2 (BCL-2) inhibitors, like Roche and AbbVie’s Venclexta (venetoclax).
The biotech plans to follow up the phase 2 study, called Daybreak, with a confirmatory phase 3 trial in the first half of 2026, according to an Oct. 22 release. While BTK inhibitors block part of the BTK protein’s activity, Nurix’s degraders are designed to destroy BTK entirely, the company said in the trial’s entry on ClinicalTrials.gov.
“The initiation of the DAYBreak study marks Nurix’s transition to a pivotal-stage company and a major milestone for bexobrutideg, which our data demonstrate has a potential best-in-class profile,” Arthur Sands, M.D., Ph.D., Nurix’s president and CEO, said in the release. “With the DAYBreak study underway, we are advancing the development of bexobrutideg and are one step closer to registration and commercialization.”
Another one of Nurix’s BTK degraders, which is designed to simultaneously target a pair of other proteins classified as cereblon neosubstrates, had a phase 1 trial put on hold by the FDA in November 2023 while Nurix revamped its manufacturing process. The hold was lifted in March 2024.
Nurix is also pursuing bexobrutideg in non-Hodgkin lymphoma and Waldenström macroglobulinemia, a rare, slow-growing blood cancer. The biotech’s pipeline also includes collaborations with Gilead Sciences and Pfizer (inherited from Pfizer’s acquisition of Seagen), and Nurix sold a pair of protein degraders to Sanofi earlier this year as part of an ongoing partnership.