Building or investing in the targeted protein degradation market?

Targeted protein degradation crossed a line in 2026: it now has approved drugs, and big pharma is paying for the next ones.

We've found a lot of interesting signals. For example, in May 2026, the FDA approved Veppanu, the breast cancer pill from Arvinas and Pfizer and the first PROTAC ever approved. In June, Roche agreed to pay Nurix $700M upfront for its BTK degrader, in a deal worth up to $2.3B. And in August, Bristol Myers Squibb's iberdomide won accelerated approval in multiple myeloma, as a pill that makes cancer cells destroy proteins they need to survive. Degraders have moved from a lab idea to real medicines, and drug makers are paying for the ones in late trials.

In this section, we look at why degraders are reaching patients now, which diseases come after cancer, and what the first approvals and the prices paid tell startups still in early trials.

Many disease proteins have no pocket where a drug can sit, and others come back stronger after a drug blocks them. That leaves a lot of patients without a good option.

We compare six types of degrader companies, from PROTAC and molecular glue developers to teams that clear proteins outside the cell and platforms that hunt for new glues. Their partners are mostly big pharma, in cancer first and now in immune and brain diseases. Then we rank their biggest pains, like getting large molecules absorbed as pills, finding glues by design rather than by luck, and tumors that change the machinery the drug relies on.

This tells you where a young degrader company can sell its skills today, and where it still has to prove the science first.

Most degrader companies don't sell a drug yet. They earn money from pharma partnerships, upfront payments, milestones and royalties, and only a few now have products on the market.

We compare who pays, when, and what each path costs. A discovery platform can sign many deals, but most of the headline value arrives only if its partners' drugs succeed. A company that keeps its own drug pays for the trials and keeps more of the upside. And approval alone doesn't settle the economics: a drug for a narrow group of patients can change hands for a modest upfront, even when it is the first of its kind.

You'll see which degrader models bring in cash early, and which only pay off once a drug reaches enough patients.

Two approvals don't make a market on their own. Here, we go through what has to keep working for degraders to grow.

Some drivers are plain to see: approved drugs that show the approach works, proteins that inhibitors can't reach, and big pharma looking for new drugs as patents expire. Others feed each other. Each new glue teaches teams how to design the next one, with help from AI and protein structure tools. Pills that clear immune proteins like STAT6 could one day compete with injected antibodies. And every big license makes it easier for the next startup to raise money.

Before building or investing, you should know what it takes for a degrader to beat a good inhibitor in patients, not just in a cell dish.

Arvinas and C4 Therapeutics were among the first companies built around degraders, but the field now goes far beyond them.

Plenty of the interesting work happens away from the headlines. Some teams only search for new molecular glues and license what they find. Others build degraders for proteins outside the cell, attach degraders to antibodies, or look for new ligases so drugs don't all rely on the same one. Several are Chinese biotechs that license their molecules to Western drug makers.

They're hard to compare because a degrader's promise depends on details outsiders rarely see: which ligase it uses, how well it's absorbed, how cleanly it removes the target. Many of the best programs also sit inside pharma partnerships, where the data stays private.

Below, you'll find our market grids and ecosystem maps, showing which approach each company uses, which diseases it targets, and where there's still room.

Kymera Therapeutics, Monte Rosa Therapeutics, Proxygen… a few degrader startups are pulling ahead, each with its own model. None has a drug on the market yet.

Kymera Therapeutics is testing an oral STAT6 degrader in mid-stage trials for eczema and asthma, and works with Sanofi and Gilead on other programs. Monte Rosa Therapeutics has signed two deals with Novartis around its molecular glues. Proxygen, a private Austrian company, finds glues for partners such as Merck. Their progress is real, but the proof in patients is still to come.

We'll look at how these teams picked targets that degraders reach better than other drugs, and when they let partners pay for the work.