targeted-protein-degradation
(21)
PAQ Therapeutics
PAQ Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company in Burlington, Massachusetts developing a new class of small-molecule degraders that harness autophagy, the body's natural cellular recycling system, to destroy disease-causing proteins. Its proprietary ATTEC (autophagosome-tethering compound) platform aims to eliminate targets that traditional inhibitors cannot reach. The company's lead programs are KRAS degraders - PT0253, a selective KRAS G12D degrader, and PT0511, a pan-KRAS degrader - both in Phase 1 clinical trials for lung, colorectal and pancreatic cancers driven by KRAS mutations.
Pinetree Therapeutics
Pinetree Therapeutics is a Cambridge, Massachusetts biotech founded in 2019 that develops antibody-based targeted protein degraders for cancer. Its AbReptor and TAER-TAB platforms use modular bispecific and multispecific antibodies to hijack the body's own lysosomal machinery and eliminate disease-driving membrane-bound and extracellular proteins - including drug-resistant receptor tyrosine kinases that conventional inhibitors cannot reach. Led by founder and CEO Ho-Juhn Song, Ph.D., the preclinical company has raised roughly $111M to date, struck a $500M+ EGFR-degrader option deal with AstraZeneca, and is advancing lead oncology programs toward Phase I.
SEED Therapeutics
SEED Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering rationally designed molecular glue degraders to treat diseases driven by proteins long considered undruggable. Powered by its proprietary RITE3 discovery platform - which pairs disease-causing target proteins with the most suitable of more than 600 human E3 ligases - SEED reprograms the cell's own ubiquitin-proteasome system to destroy harmful proteins rather than merely block them. Founded in 2020 by CEO Lan Huang and a group of protein-degradation pioneers including Nobel laureate Avram Hershko, the company advanced its lead oral RBM39 degrader ST-01156 into first-in-human Phase 1 trials in early 2026, with a broader pipeline spanning oncology, neurodegeneration, immunology and virology backed by partners Eli Lilly and Eisai.
Ho-Juhn Song
Ho-Juhn Song is the co-founder and CEO of PineTree Therapeutics, a Cambridge, Massachusetts biotech building next-generation targeted protein degraders to overcome drug resistance in cancer. A geneticist by training with a Ph.D. from Oregon State University and a former project team leader at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, Song founded PineTree in 2019 around the AbReptor platform, which degrades membrane-bound and extracellular proteins that conventional drugs struggle to reach. Under his leadership the company licensed its lead EGFR degrader to AstraZeneca in a deal worth more than $500 million in potential milestones and closed an oversubscribed $47 million Series B in October 2025.
Lan Huang
Lan Huang is a chemist turned biotech entrepreneur and the Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO of SEED Therapeutics, a New York clinical-stage company designing molecular glues that direct the cell's own disposal machinery to break down disease-driving proteins once considered undruggable. She earlier founded BeyondSpring Pharmaceuticals and took it public on NASDAQ. A UC Berkeley PhD who solved an early E3 ubiquitin ligase structure, she built SEED around targeted protein degradation with collaborators including Nobel laureate Avram Hershko, and secured partnerships with Eli Lilly and Eisai.
Nan Ji
Nan Ji is co-founder, president and CEO of PAQ Therapeutics, a Burlington, Massachusetts clinical-stage biotech pioneering autophagosome-tethering compounds (ATTECs) to degrade KRAS and other 'undruggable' disease drivers. A Harvard-trained organic chemist with 30+ patent applications, he spent seven years at Novartis, helped build Kymera Therapeutics from seed stage as VP of Chemistry, and launched PAQ in 2020 to hijack the body's natural cellular clean-up machinery for cancer and neurodegenerative disease.
Avilar Therapeutics
Avilar Therapeutics is a Waltham, Massachusetts biopharmaceutical company pioneering the degradation of extracellular and membrane-bound proteins. Its ATAC (ASGPR Targeting Chimera) platform uses bifunctional small molecules that grab a disease-causing protein floating in circulation and shuttle it into the liver's endolysosome to be destroyed, extending the reach of targeted protein degradation beyond the inside of the cell. Launched in 2021 with backing from RA Capital, Avilar is applying the platform to autoimmune disease, preeclampsia, and other conditions driven by proteins that conventional drugs struggle to address.
Fortitude Biomedicines
Fortitude Biomedicines is a Waltham, Massachusetts biotech that launched in early 2026 with $13M in seed financing to develop next-generation antibody-based therapies for autoimmune diseases and cancer. Its proprietary GLUE-DAC platform bolts molecular glue degraders onto antibody-drug conjugates, aiming to use catalytic targeted protein degradation to widen the therapeutic window of ADCs and overcome the resistance that has dogged the field. Its lead program, FORT-202, is a first-in-class T-cell targeting bispecific antibody for axial spondyloarthritis expected to reach the clinic in the first half of 2027.
Jesse Chen
Jesse Chen is the founder, president and CEO of Fortitude Biomedicines, a Waltham, Massachusetts biopharmaceutical company that launched in January 2026 with $13 million in seed financing. A serial biotech entrepreneur with an MIT PhD in biological chemistry, Chen previously co-founded TRIANA Biomedicines and Avilar Therapeutics, was the founding scientific hire at Kymera Therapeutics where he built its targeted protein degradation platform, and held discovery roles at Moderna and Millennium Pharmaceuticals. At Fortitude he is betting that molecular glue payloads, packaged into a platform he calls GLUE-DAC, can overcome the drug resistance that limits today's antibody-drug conjugates and extend them into autoimmune disease.
Plexium
Plexium is a San Diego precision medicine company designing small-molecule protein degraders - monovalent direct degraders and molecular glues - that switch off disease-driving proteins traditionally considered undruggable. Its DELTA Discovery platform runs ultra-high-throughput cell-based screening to find and optimize new degrader chemistry across cancer and neurological disease.
Nurix Therapeutics
Nurix Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company in San Francisco pioneering targeted protein degradation - medicines that destroy disease-causing proteins rather than merely blocking them. Built on its DELigase discovery engine that harnesses the cell's ubiquitin-proteasome system and DNA-encoded library screening, Nurix is advancing a pipeline of degraders and degrader antibody conjugates for cancer and autoimmune disease, led by the BTK degrader bexobrutideg (NX-5948). The company is partnered with Roche, Sanofi, Gilead, and Pfizer (via Seagen) and trades on Nasdaq under NRIX.
Larkspur Biosciences
Larkspur Biosciences is a Cambridge, Massachusetts precision-oncology company building first-in-class small molecule protein degraders that attack cancer cells where they are most vulnerable. Using its machine-learning-enabled LarkX platform to pinpoint 'cancer cell fitness' genes, Larkspur designs drugs that trigger tumor-intrinsic cell death and disrupt how cancers hide from the immune system. Its lead candidate, LRK-4189, degrades the lipid kinase PIP4K2C and entered first-in-human Phase 1 testing in December 2025 for microsatellite stable colorectal cancer.
Neomorph, Inc.
Neomorph is a San Diego clinical-stage biotech building molecular glue degraders - small molecules that recruit the cell's own disposal machinery to destroy disease-driving proteins long written off as 'undruggable.' Founded in 2020 out of Deerfield Management with scientific founders who decoded how thalidomide-class drugs work, the company has assembled what it calls the world's largest proprietary molecular glue target space across a broad portfolio of E3 ubiquitin ligases. It has signed multibillion-dollar discovery pacts with AbbVie, Novo Nordisk, and Biogen, dosed its first patient with lead candidate NEO-811 in kidney cancer, and raised roughly $209M across Series A and B.
Treeline Biosciences
Treeline Biosciences is a Watertown, Massachusetts biotech founded in 2021 by Loxo Oncology founder Josh Bilenker and former Novartis oncology head Jeff Engelman. It pairs in-house wet-lab R&D with leading-edge computational tools to invent cancer medicines reliably and repeatedly, choosing targets by what the technology can reach rather than by therapeutic fashion. After operating largely in stealth, Treeline has raised more than $1.1 billion and moved three programs - a BCL6 degrader, a pan-KRAS inhibitor, and an EZH2 inhibitor - into Phase 1 trials. In June 2026 it agreed to go public through an all-stock reverse merger with Standard BioTools, with the combined company set to trade on Nasdaq as 'TRLN'.
Phil Chamberlain
Phil Chamberlain is the co-founder, president and CEO of Neomorph, a San Diego biotech building molecular glue degraders to drug proteins long written off as untouchable. An Oxford-trained structural biologist, he spent a decade at Celgene and Bristol Myers Squibb decoding how thalidomide works at the atomic level, then turned that science into a company that has signed partnerships with AbbVie, Biogen and Novo Nordisk worth billions and pushed its lead degrader into the clinic.
Frontier Medicines
Frontier Medicines is a precision-medicine biotech using chemoproteomics, covalent chemistry, and machine learning to drug proteins long considered 'undruggable.' Its lead candidate, FMC-376, is a first-in-class dual ON/OFF inhibitor of KRAS G12C now in the Phase 1/2 PROSPER trial. Backed by $315M+ in venture funding and a major AbbVie partnership, the company is one of the most-watched names in next-generation targeted cancer therapy.
Arthur T. Sands
Arthur T. Sands, M.D., Ph.D., is the President and CEO of Nurix Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company pioneering targeted protein degradation medicines. A co-founder of Lexicon Pharmaceuticals in 1995, he spent 19 years transforming that company from a research startup into a drug-development enterprise generating over $450 million in revenue. At Nurix, he leads efforts to deploy a proprietary DEL-AI platform - combining DNA-encoded libraries with machine learning - to discover and develop small-molecule degraders and degrader-antibody conjugates for cancer and inflammatory diseases. The company's lead asset, bexobrutideg (a BTK degrader), entered pivotal Phase 2 development in 2025 with an 83% objective response rate in relapsed CLL patients.
Jennifer Cygan
Jennifer Cygan is a seasoned biotech executive and Chief Business Officer at EpiBiologics, where she helps advance a pipeline of novel bispecific antibodies designed to selectively degrade extracellular protein targets in oncology and immunology. With a Ph.D. from Harvard and over two decades of business leadership in biotechnology, she has been a pivotal force at Genentech, Calico Life Sciences (managing a $2.5B AbbVie alliance), and has co-founded and served as CBO for multiple emerging biotech companies including Broadwing Bio, Eikon Therapeutics, GenEdit, and Plexium. Her career sits at the intersection of science and strategy - translating cutting-edge biology into deals, partnerships, and companies that matter.
Jorge Dimartino
Jorge F. DiMartino, M.D., Ph.D., is Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President of Clinical and Translational Development at Plexium, a San Diego-based biotech pioneering targeted protein degradation. A physician-scientist trained in genetics, immunology, and pediatric oncology across UC Berkeley, Cornell, UC San Diego, and Stanford, DiMartino has spent over two decades advancing cancer drugs from bench to bedside. His fingerprints are on three now-marketed therapies: vismodegib, venetoclax, and enasidenib - each a breakthrough in its own right. At Plexium, he oversees clinical programs targeting SMARCA2, IKZF2, CDK2, and CRAF using the company's DELTA Discovery platform, a novel approach to degrading proteins previously considered undruggable.
Sofia Touami
Sofia Touami, Ph.D., is the Chief Business Officer of Lycia Therapeutics, a South San Francisco biotech pioneering lysosomal targeting chimeras (LYTACs) - a platform invented by Nobel laureate Carolyn Bertozzi to degrade disease-causing extracellular proteins. A trained organic chemist who earned her Ph.D. at Stanford and did postdoctoral work at The Scripps Research Institute, Touami has built a career as one of biotech's sharpest dealmakers, having orchestrated major transactions including Frontier Medicines' landmark global collaboration with AbbVie before joining Lycia in July 2023. She helped close Lycia's oversubscribed $106.6 million Series C in May 2024, positioning the company to bring its LYTAC-based autoimmune therapies into clinical trials.
Chris Varma
Chris Varma, Ph.D., is Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Frontier Medicines, a clinical-stage biotech attacking cancer's 'undruggable' proteins using chemoproteomics, covalent chemistry, and machine learning. A serial biotech founder with 20+ years in life sciences, he previously co-founded Blueprint Medicines (acquired by Sanofi for $9B+ in 2025) and Warp Drive Bio (acquired by Revolution Medicines in 2018), and held investor roles at Third Rock Ventures, Flagship Pioneering, and MPM Capital. His career spans the FDA, Novartis, and three successful company builds - with Frontier Medicines now advancing FMC-376, a first-in-class dual KRAS G12C inhibitor, through Phase 1/2 clinical trials.