Nurix earns $10m milestone as Sanofi starts STAT6 degrader Phase 1

Nurix Therapeutics has earned a $10 million milestone payment after collaborator Sanofi initiated a Phase 1 first-in-human trial of SAR448272/NX-3911, an oral small-molecule degrader targeting the transcription factor STAT6. The Brisbane, California company said the payment brings cumulative receipts under its 2019 Sanofi agreement to approximately $139 million, with up to $453 million in additional milestones still available for the STAT6 programme alone.

STAT6 sits at the centre of the interleukin-4 and interleukin-13 signalling pathways that drive type 2 inflammatory responses. Diseases in this category include atopic dermatitis and asthma, both of which represent large and commercially active markets. Sanofi is conducting the trial and bears full responsibility for ongoing clinical development, while Nurix retains an option to co-develop and co-promote in the United States once clinical proof of concept has been demonstrated.

The collaboration and what it means financially

The Nurix-Sanofi partnership dates to December 2019, when Sanofi paid an upfront fee of $55 million and later added a further $22 million to broaden the collaboration's scope. In June 2025, Sanofi exercised its exclusive licence extension option covering STAT6 and a second, undisclosed target, triggering two payments of $15 million each. The $10 million Phase 1 initiation milestone follows those extensions.

Gwenn M. Hansen, chief scientific officer of Nurix, said that advancing SAR448272 into the clinic "further validates the productivity of our DEL-AI drug discovery platform in generating differentiated degrader medicines for immunology." Nurix developed SAR448272 using its proprietary DEL-AI engine, which integrates DNA-encoded library screening with artificial intelligence to identify E3 ligase-mediated protein degraders.

Market context and competitive landscape

Targeted protein degradation, which encompasses proteolysis-targeting chimaeras (PROTACs) and molecular glue degraders, has attracted substantial interest from large pharma over the past five years. The type 2 inflammation space is itself intensely competitive: biologic agents targeting IL-4 and IL-13 signalling, most notably dupilumab, have set a high efficacy bar in atopic dermatitis and asthma. An oral degrader that silences STAT6 directly, rather than blocking its upstream cytokine ligands, could offer a mechanistically distinct and potentially more complete suppression of the pathway. Whether that translates into clinical differentiation will depend on the Phase 1 safety and pharmacodynamic readouts, which Sanofi controls.

Beyond STAT6, Nurix operates a broader partnered degrader portfolio. Its BTK degrader bexobrutideg is being co-developed with Roche across oncology and autoimmune indications, while an IRAK-4 degrader programme is partnered with Gilead Sciences. Pfizer also holds a collaboration with Nurix for undisclosed targets. The breadth of these partnerships provides some validation of the DEL-AI platform, though Nurix's near-term revenue remains largely milestone-dependent, making each clinical advancement commercially significant.

Investors will be focused on the speed of Phase 1 dose escalation, the emergence of any safety signals relevant to broader immunosuppression, and whether Nurix exercises its US co-development option once proof-of-concept data become available. A decision to co-fund the programme would materially alter the company's cash position and development-stage profile.