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About

Blazing a New Path in Medicine

Nurix is committed to bringing novel, first-in-class therapies to patients without adequate treatment options. Our small molecule drugs are designed to modulate protein levels in cells as a new therapeutic approach for cancer.

Nurix was founded by a team of internationally renowned experts in the fields of E3 ubiquitin ligase regulation and structure. Since its incorporation, Nurix has built a seasoned team of leaders with wide-ranging backgrounds in small molecule drug development and cancer therapy. Through its leadership in Targeted Protein Modulation and its powerful proprietary DELigase platform, Nurix has attracted industry-leading partners, including its current drug discovery collaborations with Gilead Sciences, Sanofi, and Pfizer.

Arthur T. Sands, M.D., Ph.D., has served as President of Nurix since June 2020, and as Chief Executive Officer and a member of the company’s board of directors since September 2014. Prior to joining Nurix, Dr. Sands was the co-founder and served as President, Chief Executive Officer, and as a member of the board of directors of Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on target validation and pharmaceutical development, from 1995 to July 2014. Before founding Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Sands served as an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Human and Molecular Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Sands holds a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Yale University and an M.D. and a Ph.D. in Cell Biology from Baylor College of Medicine.

David Lacey, M.D., has served as Chairman of our board of directors since August 2019, and as a member of our board of directors since April 2016. Dr. Lacey is a biopharmaceutical consultant at David L. Lacey LLC, where he advises academic institutions, biotechnology companies, and venture capital firms, a position he has held since July 2011. Dr. Lacey currently serves on the board of directors of Arcus Biosciences, Inc., Atreca, Inc., and Inbiomotion SL. From 1994 until his retirement in 2011, Dr. Lacey held various positions, including Senior Vice President of Discovery Research, at Amgen Inc. Dr. Lacey holds a B.A. in Biology from the University of Colorado, Denver and an M.D. from the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

Julia P. Gregory has served as a member of our board of directors since August 2019. Ms. Gregory is currently Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Isometry Advisors, Inc., a biotechnology financial, strategy, and management advisory firm. Ms. Gregory formerly served as Chief Executive Officer at ContraFect Corporation, a biotechnology company focused on therapeutics for drug resistant infectious diseases, from November 2013 through March 2016, and as a member of its board of directors from April 2014 through March 2016. Prior to her appointment as Chief Executive Officer, Ms. Gregory served as ContraFect’s Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer from July 2012 to November 2013. From 2009 to August 2011, Ms. Gregory served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Five Prime Therapeutics, Inc., and from 2000 to 2008 she served as Executive Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Financial Officer of Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. In addition, Ms. Gregory has twenty years of investment banking experience, including at Dillon, Read & Co. and at Punk, Ziegel & Company, where she served as the head of investment banking and head of its life sciences practice. Ms. Gregory currently serves on the board of directors of Biohaven Ltd. and Freeline Therapeutics, Ltd. Ms. Gregory holds a B.A. from George Washington University and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Lori A. Kunkel, M.D., has served as a member of our board of directors since July 2019. Dr. Kunkel is a biotechnology consultant at LAK505, LLC (previously D2D, LLC), where she advises on drug development, strategy and commercialization, a position she has held since 2004. Dr. Kunkel currently serves on the board of directors of Oric Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and K36.  She previously served as a director of Loxo Oncology, Inc. from October 2014 until February 2019, Tocagen from September 2015 to June 2020, Maverick Therapeutics from May 2015 to August 2021 and Curis, Inc. from November 2016 to September 2022. Dr. Kunkel served as Chief Medical Officer of Pharmacyclics LLC from 2011 to 2013 and of Proteolix, Inc. from 2007 to 2009. Dr. Kunkel also serves as a scientific advisor to a number of public and private biotechnology companies. Dr. Kunkel received a B.A. in Biology from University of California, San Diego and an M.D. from the University of Southern California.

Judy Reinsdorf has served as a member of our board of directors since October 2021. Ms. Reinsdorf has extensive experience in executive roles across multiple industries.  She most recently served as executive vice president and general counsel of Johnson Controls International, a global leader in building products and technology and integrated solutions, from September 2016 to November 2017, following its merger with Tyco International, where she served as executive vice president and general counsel from March 2007 until September 2016. She currently serves on the board of directors of Enpro Inc. and Toll Brothers, Inc., on the board of trustees of the University of Rochester, and on the advisory board of the NACD New Jersey Chapter. Previously, Ms. Reinsdorf served on the boards of Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. until its acquisition by Astra Zeneca in 2021, The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation from 2013 until 2019 and Cornerstone Building Brands, Inc. from 2021 until it was taken private in 2022. She began her career in 1989 as an associate at Crowell & Moring and held various legal counsel positions at Monsanto, Pharmacia and C.R. Bard.  Ms. Reinsdorf holds a B.A. from the University of Rochester and a J.D. from Cornell Law School.

Edward C. Saltzman has served as a member of our board of directors since September 2022. Mr. Saltzman has nearly four decades of consulting and strategic development experience in the pharmaceutical, specialty pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. He currently serves as a Senior Strategic Advisor for Lumanity Inc., an Arsenal Capital Partners company focused on improving patient health by accelerating and optimizing access to medical advances, and served as Lumanity’s Head of Biotech Strategy from March 2022 until March 2023. In 1993, Mr. Saltzman founded Defined Health Inc., an asset development strategy consulting firm, and led it to becoming a preeminent advisor to senior management and boards of directors of biotechnology and biopharmaceutical companies, including those developing novel drug discovery platforms. Following the sale of Defined Health to Cello Health plc in January 2017, Mr. Saltzman served as President of Cello Health’s bio-consulting business unit until mid 2017, when he became the unit’s Executive Chairman, a position he held until March of 2022 when Cello Health was merged with several other businesses and renamed Lumanity. Mr. Saltzman is a frequent speaker on industry issues and is a past recipient of the LES Frank Barnes Mentoring Award for his contributions to education in the life sciences sector. Mr. Saltzman currently is a Venture Advisor to the Israel Biotech Fund and Hibiscus Capital Management. Mr. Saltzman previously served on the board of directors of Vidac Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Saniona AB. Mr. Saltzman holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from New York University.

Paul M. Silva has served as a member of our board of directors since October 2021. Mr. Silva is a biotechnology leader with more than 30 years of finance and operational experience. He served as senior vice president, chief accounting officer, at Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated, a global biotechnology company, from April 2011 until his retirement in April 2021, and also served as the company’s interim chief financial officer from January 2019 to April 2019.  Mr. Silva joined Vertex in August 2007 and was the company’s vice president and corporate controller from September 2008 through April 2011.  Prior to Vertex, he held positions at Iron Mountain Incorporated, Thermo Electron Corporation, and Anderson LLP.  Mr. Silva holds a B.S. in accounting from Assumption College.

Arthur Weiss, M.D., Ph.D., is a pioneer in cell biology and signal transduction. Dr. Weiss is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and Ephraim P. Engleman Distinguished Professor, University of California San Francisco. He has previously served as the President of the American Association of Immunologists. He was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Weiss received his B.A. at the Johns Hopkins University and his M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago School of Medicine. He did postdoctoral training at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research and his clinical training in internal medicine and rheumatology at UCSF.

Michael Rapé, Ph.D., is a leader in the biology of ubiquitin-dependent cell cycle progression and carcinogenesis. He is a Howard Hughes Investigator and a Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He started his own lab at the University of California, Berkeley in the fall of 2006, where he has developed novel screening tools to identify the ubiquitylation enzymes that are important for cell division and differentiation and pair them with the proteins they target. Prior to that, he completed his postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School in the lab of Marc Kirschner. In recognition of his creativity and productivity, Dr. Rapé was named a Pew Scholar and received the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award in 2007. He has also won prestigious fellowships from the Human Frontier Science Program and the European Molecular Biology Organization. Dr. Rapé studied Biochemistry at the University of Bayreuth in Germany and received his Ph.D. at the MPI in Martinsried, Germany in the lab of Stefan Jentsch.

John Kuriyan, Ph.D., is an expert in the structural dynamics of ubiquitin ligases and other signaling complexes. Dr. Kuriyan is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and a Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology and of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley. Prior to that, he served as Assistant Professor and then Professor at Rockefeller University for 14 years. Dr. Kuriyan serves as a member of the Advisory Board at Carmot Therapeutics Inc. and is a Senior Editor at eLife, a new enterprise in high profile and open access scientific publishing. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, which awarded him the 2005 Richard Lounsbery Award. He holds a B.S. in chemistry from Juniata College, Pennsylvania, and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Ronald Levy, M.D., has served as a member of Nurix’s Medical Advisory Board since 2023.  Dr. Levy is the Robert K. Summy and Helen K. Summy Professor of Medicine and Director of the Lymphoma Program at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is also the Associate Director of Translational Science for the Stanford Cancer Institute. For more than 25 years, Dr. Levy’s research has focused on monoclonal antibodies and the study of malignant lymphoma, currently using the tools of immunology and molecular biology to develop a better understanding of the initiation and progression of the malignant process. He was the first to successfully treat cancer with a monoclonal antibody, and went on to help develop rituximab, the first FDA-approved antibody for the treatment of lymphoma. Dr. Levy holds an A.B. in Biochemistry from Harvard University and an M.D. from Stanford University.

Roy Baynes, MB.Bch., M.Med., Ph.D.,  has served as a member of Nurix’s Medical Advisory Board since 2023.   Dr. Baynes currently serves as Chief Medical Officer at Eikon Therapeutics, Inc. Dr. Baynes previously served as Chief Medical Officer at Merck & Co.,  where he was responsible for the development of the entire clinical portfolio in Merck Research Laboratories, and was the architect of the development strategy for dozens of important new medicines including pembrolizumab, a humanized monoclonal antibody used in cancer immunotherapy that treats some 17 different tumor types as well as two histology agnostic indications. Earlier in his career, Dr. Baynes served as Vice President of Global Development and head of the hematology/oncology development team at Amgen, Inc., as Senior Vice President of Oncology, Inflammation and Respiratory Therapeutics at Gilead Sciences, Inc., and as Professor of Medicine at University of Kansas Medical Center and Wayne State University in Detroit as well as holding the Charles Martin endowed chair of Cancer Research at Wayne State University. Dr. Baynes holds an MB.BCh. (Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery), an M.Med. (specialist registration in Internal Medicine), and a Ph.D. from the University of Witwatersrand.

Expanding Our Pipeline with Industry-Leading Partners

Our current strategic collaborations are focused on discovering and developing innovative therapies using our DELigase platform. Each collaboration addresses a unique set of targets chosen by our partner, is distinct from our proprietary pipeline, and employs our DELigase platform and Targeted Protein Degradation.

Gilead Sciences

In June 2019, Nurix entered into a global strategic collaboration with Gilead to discover, develop, and commercialize a pipeline of innovative targeted protein degradation drugs for patients with cancer and other challenging diseases. Read More

In March 2023, Gilead and Nurix announced that Gilead exercised its option to exclusively license Nurix’s investigational targeted protein degrader molecule, NX-0479, a potent, selective, oral degrader of IRAK4. IRAK4 degradation has potential applications in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory diseases. In connection with the option exercise, Nurix received a payment of $20 million. Read More

Sanofi

In January 2020, Nurix entered into a global strategic collaboration with Sanofi to discover, develop, and commercialize a pipeline of innovative targeted protein degradation drugs for patients with challenging diseases. Read More

In January 2021, Nurix announced the expansion of its strategic collaboration with Sanofi, increasing the number of targets from three to a total of five. In connection with the expansion, Nurix received a payment of $22 million, in addition to the initial payment of $55 million. Read More

Pfizer

In September 2023, Nurix announced a strategic collaboration with Seagen (now part of Pfizer), combining industry leading technologies of targeted protein degradation and antibody drug conjugation to advance an innovative new class of cancer therapeuticsRead More