Oppenheimer says too early to make call on Nurix Therapeutics’ NX-5948

Oppenheimer analyst Matthew Biegler notes that on Monday, Nurix Therapeutics unveiled first-in-human data from its second-generation BTK degrader, NX-5948. The good news is that the drug looks safer than NX-2127, Oppenheimer says. There were few Grade 3 or higher adverse events, and no patients had discontinued treatment as of the cutoff-and dose escalation is ongoing. Better safety would jibe with the theory that dialing out NX-2127’s IMiD activity should improve tolerability without sacrificing efficacy-at least in the CLL subset of patients, it adds. Unfortunately, efficacy was still quite early in this data set, the firm acknowledges. Only one patient had prior pirtobrutinib exposure, and none had the tell-tale C481S mutant that predicts poor response to ibrutinib. Without any real data from patients in relevant treatment categories, it’s hard to say how NX-5948 stacks up against the competition, Oppenheimer argues. The firm has an Outperform rating on the shares.