Sanofi has decided to end work on a STAT6 degrader from Nurix just two months after taking the inflammatory disease drug into the clinic.
The two companies have been working together since 2019, when Sanofi paid $55 million to partner with the biotech to find new ways of using E3 ligases to induce the degradation of specific proteins. The French pharma handed a further $22 million to expand the collaboration one year later, before extending the deal again in 2024 to cover a signal transducer and activator of transcription 6 (STAT6) degrader, dubbed SAR448272.
The partnership went from strength to strength last year, with Sanofi securing two more protein degrader programs, aimed at STAT6 and an undisclosed target, respectively.
Until recently, things appeared to be on track for SAR448272, with Sanofi taking the STAT6 degrader into a phase 1 trial in August. Launching the study, which was aimed at type 2 inflammatory diseases, triggered a $10 million milestone payment to Nurix.
At the time, Nurix executives hailed the trial’s launch as “further validat[ing] the productivity of our DEL-AI drug discovery platform in generating differentiated degrader medicines for immunology.”
But two months later, Sanofi has had a change of heart. Nurix announced in a press release that the Big Pharma has decided to stop the trial and terminate the SAR448272 program.
“While today’s news is disappointing, Nurix remains in a strong position, with a substantial cash runway, three clinical-stage programs across our wholly owned and partnered portfolio, and an exciting preclinical pipeline,” Nurix CEO Arthur Sands, M.D., Ph.D., said in the release.
Sands name-checked bexobrutideg, a Roche-partnered BTK degrader program in phase 3 development for chronic lymphocytic leukemia. There’s also a Gilead-partnered IRAK4 degrader in a phase 1 study for rheumatoid arthritis, as well as Nurix’s wholly-owned CBL-B inhibitor NX-1607 in phase 1 development for various cancers.
Sanofi has yet to take any other drugs from its Nurix partnership into the clinic, but the California biotech said it would still be in line for milestones if that does occur.
Nurix didn’t disclose the exact reasons behind Sanofi’s decision, but it comes in the wake of a significant pipeline restructuring at the Big Pharma under the oversight of recently installed CEO Belén Garijo, M.D., Ph.D.
While Garijo’s arrival was followed by a slimming down of the company’s pipeline—removing the likes of amlitelimab, balinatunfib and itepekimab—the pharma’s chief financial officer told journalists last week that there are “no plans for major restructuring.”
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