Mark Gold­smith Rev­o­lu­tion

Gilead is jump­ing on board the pro­tein degra­da­tion band­wag­on. And they’re turn­ing to a low-pro­file Third Rock start­up for the ex­per­tise. But if you were look­ing for a trans­for­ma­tion­al deal to kick up fresh en­thu­si­asm for Gilead, you’ll have to re­main pa­tient.

This one will have a long way to go be­fore they get in­to the clin­ic.

The big biotech said Wednes­day morn­ing that it is pay­ing $45 mil­lion up­front and re­serv­ing a whop­ping $2.3 bil­lion in biotech bucks if San Fran­cis­co-based Nurix can point the way to new can­cer ther­a­pies, as well as drugs for oth­er, un­spec­i­fied dis­eases.

John McHutchi­son Gilead

Still in the pre­clin­i­cal phase 5 years af­ter Mark Gold­smith — dis­patched by Third Rock to launch West Coast biotechs and now CEO at Rev­o­lu­tion — boot­ed up the com­pa­ny with an un­usu­al­ly lean $25 mil­lion ven­ture round, Nurix quick­ly picked up an im­pres­sive $150 mil­lion up­front from a new deal back in 2015 with the then pro­lif­ic Cel­gene. It has 2 pre­clin­i­cal ef­forts un­der­way, one in house and a CDL-B pro­gram paired with Cel­gene, which will soon mi­grate to Bris­tol-My­ers Squibb.

Gilead CSO John McHutchi­son counts him­self as an ad­mir­er of Nurix’s tech plat­form, hop­ing it pans out “as we con­tin­ue to build a pipeline of small mol­e­cule ther­a­peu­tics for pa­tients with can­cers and oth­er dis­eases.”

Jay Brad­ner No­var­tis

The fo­cus at Nurix, and now Gilead, is the ubiq­ui­tin sys­tem and key en­zymes called E3 lig­as­es. Pro­tein degra­da­tion has proved a promis­ing ap­proach in on­col­o­gy, at­tract­ing a group of play­ers to the field. Arv­inas is one of the most promi­nent, adding an ag deal with Bay­er a few days ago with $115 mil­lion built-in up­front. But it is by no means play­ing so­lo in the sec­ond-gen pro­tein degra­da­tion field. Ri­vals to the pro­tein degra­da­tion ti­tle in­clude C4 Ther­a­peu­tics — out of Jay Brad­ner’s lab at Dana Far­ber be­fore he took the helm at NI­BR — and the start­up Kymera. And not sur­pris­ing­ly, Brad­ner — who now runs NI­BR — re­cent­ly forged a close re­la­tion­ship with UC Berke­ley on pro­tein degra­da­tion as well.

Nurix gets a chance to co-pro­mote drugs in the deal they did with Gilead, pro­vid­ed they pick up half the de­vel­op­ment costs.

So­cial im­age: Er­ic Ris­berg, AP Im­ages

Following a promise last year to go “big and fast in breast cancer,” Gilead has secured a win for Trodelvy in the most common form.

The drug was approved to treat HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer patients who’ve already received endocrine-based therapy and at least two other systemic therapies for metastatic cancer, Gilead announced on Friday.

Trodelvy won its first indication in metastatic triple-negative breast cancer back in 2020, and has since added urothelial cancer to the list. HR-positive HER2-negative breast cancer accounts for roughly 70% of new breast cancer cases worldwide per year, according to senior VP of oncology clinical development Bill Grossman, and many patients develop resistance to endocrine-based therapies or worsen on chemotherapy.

Prescription drug discount provider GoodRx will no longer be allowed to share its users’ sensitive health data with advertisers after the Federal Trade Commission charged the online coupon provider with failing to notify consumers of such disclosures to Facebook, Google, and other companies.

GoodRx agreed to pay a $1.5 million civil penalty for violating the FTC’s Health Breach Notification Rule after the FTC said it repeatedly violated a 2017 promise to not share sensitive personal health information. The FTC alleged that the company shared users’ prescription medications and personal health conditions with third party advertisers and platforms like Facebook, Google, Criteo, Branch and Twilio.