Roche Licenses Nurix Therapeutics Blood-Cancer Drug for Up to $2.3 Billion — Update

By Nina Kienle and Adria Calatayud

Roche Holding struck a deal with Nurix Therapeutics to license an experimental blood-cancer drug for up to $2.3 billion, expanding its pipeline in oncology and potentially other therapeutic areas.

The Swiss drugmaker on Monday said it would make an upfront cash payment to Nurix of $700 million, with additional payments subject to the drug, bexobrutideg, reaching development, regulatory and sales targets.

Bexobrutideg is due to enter late-stage studies for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia this summer, Roche said.

"The main opportunity for us is in B-cell malignancies. There are many B-cell malignancies and the most dominant of interest for us is chronic lymphocytic leukemia," Roche's deputy chief medical officer, Stefan Frings, said in an interview.

The company said the medicine has potential to offer higher efficacy and more favorable tolerability than established therapies for leukemia. The drug is a so-called BTK degrader designed to remove the BTK enzyme from cells, rather than blocking its effects, and overcome resistance.

Roche plans to evaluate whether the drug can be combined with other medicines to treat blood cancers and whether it can work in other diseases like multiple sclerosis and chronic spontaneous urticaria--or chronic hives with no known trigger.

"Hematology is a big opportunity and it is derisked. The other areas could be big as well, but they are currently not derisked," Frings said.

Development costs will be shared by the two companies, with Roche shouldering 60% and Nurix the remaining 40%, they said. Both companies will split equally U.S. commercialization profits and losses, and Roche will be responsible for the drug's commercialization elsewhere.

Write to Nina Kienle at nina.kienle@wsj.com and to Adria Calatayud at adria.calatayud@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 08, 2026 11:44 ET (15:44 GMT)