Roche has bought partial rights to Nurix Therapeutics’ bexobrutideg in a deal worth up to $2.3bn that will see the big pharma company help advance a drug that could outperform existing Bruton’s Tyrosine Kinase (BTK)-targeted therapeutics.
The licensing and collaboration agreement involves Roche paying $700m upfront for bexobrutideg, a candidate designed to degrade the BTK protein. Nurix is also in line for development, regulatory, and sales milestone payments that could see the total transaction reach $2.3bn in value. Roche will contribute 60% to development costs, while the US biotech will cover the rest.
As per the deal, Roche and Nurix will co-commercialise bexobrutideg in the US across all indications, while the Swiss drugmaker will market the drug in the rest of the world. Roche said the collaboration would encompass clinical development across B-cell malignancies, immunology and neurology.
Nurix is positioning bexobrutideg at a step above current BTK-focused therapies, which primarily focus on protein inhibition. In cancer, BTK’s overexpression drives the survival, proliferation, and migration of malignant B cells. Roche states that patients with B-cell–driven malignancies continue to face significant unmet need, despite advances with BTK inhibitors. Bexobrutideg is an oral BTK degrader, eliminating the protein from the cell and removing both its kinase activity and scaffolding function. According to Nurix, this might help overcome the drug resistance seen with traditional BTK inhibitors.
Approved BTK inhibitors include AbbVie and Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J’s) Imbruvica (ibrutinib), AstraZeneca’s Calquence (acalabrutinib), and BeOne Medicines’ Brukinsa (Zanubrutinib). The latter achieved around $3.9bn in global sales in 2025. Eli Lilly’s Jaypirca (pirtobrutinib) is also available as a second-line option treatment option for blood cancer patients.
Bexobrutideg is slated to enter a Phase III clinical trial this summer as a second-line treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL). Roche believes that the drug has the potential to become a best-in-class treatment option with higher efficacy and better tolerability than established therapies. In December 2025, Nurix reported a median progression-free survival (PFS) of 22.1 months in a Phase Ia trial of the drug in CLL patients. Jaypirca, for example, led to a PFS of 14 months in a Phase III trial.
Levi Garraway, Roche’s chief medical officer, said: “Our goal is to create new possibilities for patients with challenging diseases. We believe bexobrutideg could represent a major leap forward in the fight against complex blood cancers and other diseases. We are proud to join forces with Nurix to accelerate these potential breakthroughs.”