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Nurix Announces New Appointments to its Board of Directors

Nurix Announces New Appointments to its Board of Directors

David Lacey, M.D., and Perry Karsen Appointed to Board of DirectorsTim Kutzkey, Ph.D., Appointed as Chairman of the Board

SAN FRANCISCO, May 3, 2016 –Nurix, Inc., a private drug discovery company, today announced the appointments of David Lacey, M.D., and Perry Karsen to the company’s board of directors. In addition, Tim Kutzkey, Ph.D., a partner at The Column Group, has been appointed chairman of the board.

“We are excited to have two accomplished industry leaders join our board of directors. Both David and Perry have distinguished careers in building and leading large R&D organizations and bring abundant operating experience that will help propel our drug discovery platform,” said Arthur T. Sands, M.D., Ph.D., CEO of Nurix. “ Tim has made significant contributions to Nurix since its inception having served as Nurix’s interim president and board member since 2012. I look forward to working closely with him in his new capacity.”

David Lacey joined Amgen in 1994, where he assumed the head of discovery research and managed more than 1200 employees during the last five years of his tenure. At any given time, Dr. Lacey oversaw over 100 actively-managed preclinical projects across four therapeutic areas: hematology/oncology, inflammation, metabolic disorders and neuroscience. Scientifically, he played a fundamental role in the discovery of the OPG/RANKL/RANK pathway at Amgen, which led to the development of the anti-RANKL human mAb denosumab, a blockbuster for both osteoporosis (Prolia) and cancer-related bone diseases (XGEVA) that had combined sales of more than $2 billion in 2015. Following his retirement in 2011, Dr. Lacey has continued to be active in the biopharmaceutical industry. His current activities include advising academic institutions, biotechnology companies and venture capital firms. Dr. Lacey received both his undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Colorado. Following the completion of his medical training, he served on the faculty of Washington University in St. Louis, MO.

Mr. Karsen served as the CEO of Celgene Cellular Therapeutics from 2013 until his retirement from Celgene at the end of 2015. Mr. Karsen also held positions of increasing responsibility at Celgene Corporation as executive vice president and chief operations officer, and previously served as senior vice president, head of worldwide business development and president of the company’s Asia/Pacific region. Prior to Celgene, he was the president and CEO of Pearl Therapeutics, a privately held biotechnology company that was acquired by Astra-Zeneca in 2013. Mr. Karsen has also held executive positions at Human Genome Sciences, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., Genentec , Inc. and Abbott Laboratories, and was a general partner at Pequot Ventures focusing on investments in biotechnology and medical devices. Mr. Karsen received a masters of management from Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management, a masters in teaching of biology from Duke University and a B.S. in biological sciences from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Mr. Karsen will represent Third Rock Ventures on the Nurix board.

In conjunction with the new board appointments, Mark Goldsmith, M.D. Ph.D., founding president, CEO and board director of Revolution Medicines and venture partner at Third Rock Ventures, has resigned from the company’s board of directors.

“As Nurix’s interim CEO and director, Mark has been a tireless advocate for the advancement of Nurix’s scientific and business initiatives, establishing the company as a leader in the protein homeostasis field,” said Dr. Sands. “We wish him continued success as he builds his new company.”

About Nurix Therapeutics

Nurix, Inc. is a leader in the discovery of small molecules that modulate the ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS) to address significant, unmet medical needs. The UPS is a regulatory pathway that controls protein levels, a function vital to the healthy life of a cell, and presents therapeutic opportunities in multiple disease areas. Nurix was founded by internationally-recognized experts in the ubiquitin proteasome field and is funded by leading life science investors, Third Rock Ventures and The Column Group. In September 2015, Nurix and Celgene entered into a broad collaboration targeting protein homeostasis for next-generation therapies in oncology, inflammation and immunology. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California. For more information, please visit www.nurix-inc.com

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