Proxygen Announces Strategic Collaboration with Merck to Develop Molecular Glue Degraders
2.6.2022 18:00:00 EEST | Business Wire | Press release
Proxygen, a leader in the discovery and development of molecular glue degraders, announced today that the company has entered into a strategic multi-year research collaboration and license agreement with Merck. Proxygen is eligible to receive up to €495 million ($554 million at the average USD/EUR FX rate of Q1 2022) in continuous R&D funding, upfront and success-based pre-clinical, clinical, regulatory, and commercial milestones, as well as additional royalty payments. Under the terms of the agreement, the companies will jointly identify and develop molecular glue degraders up to a clinical candidate stage.
“We are incredibly excited to start this long-term collaboration with Merck, a globally recognized player in the pharmaceutical industry that shares our drive towards dynamic innovation for the benefit of patients. The partnership validates the unique potential of Proxygen’s glue degrader platform and strategically leverages our common strengths in the targeted protein degradation field,” says Dr. Bernd Boidol, CEO of Proxygen.
Molecular glue degraders re-direct the cell’s own quality control machinery towards disease-causing proteins, inducing their selective and complete elimination. Because of their capability to modulate protein classes that would not be amenable to traditional drug discovery approaches, glue degraders hold the promise of unlocking a large proportion of the undruggable target space and delivering innovative therapies for diseases with high medical need. The lack of scalable discovery strategies has however so far hindered the full exploitation of the clinical potential of molecular glue degraders.
By streamlining and fully integrating cutting-edge genomic, proteomic, and biochemical technologies, Proxygen has successfully developed a highly versatile glue degrader discovery engine. The ligase-agnostic screening approach enables the specific and unbiased identification of molecular glue degraders against difficult-to-drug or completely undruggable targets at large scale. The vast amounts of know-how and data generated in the discovery and chemical optimization of degrader molecules continuously improve the understanding of this novel modality and contribute to Proxygen’s pioneering role in the molecular glue degrader space.
About Proxygen
Founded in 2020, Proxygen is focused on the discovery and development of molecular glue degraders against targets of unmet medical need across various indications. While advancing its internal programs towards clinical development, the company also maintains strategic partnerships to co-create synergies along the drug development pipeline. With its headquarters and laboratory operations in Vienna, Austria, Proxygen employs talent both locally and remotely all over Europe. For more information, please visit www.proxygen.com.
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220601005002/en/
Contact information
Proxygen GmbH
Bernd Boidol
Chief Executive Officer
office@proxygen.com
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
Alnylam to Present New Analyses at Heart Failure 2026 Underscoring Consistent Clinical Profile of Vutrisiran in ATTR-CM4.5.2026 15:30:00 EEST | Press release
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALNY), the leading RNAi therapeutics company, today announced it will present new data analyses for vutrisiran in patients with the cardiomyopathy of wild-type or hereditary transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis (ATTR-CM) at Heart Failure 2026, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology, taking place May 9-12, 2026, in Barcelona, Spain. ATTR-CM is a heterogeneous and rapidly progressive disease, and patients often present with complex clinical profiles. At Heart Failure 2026, Alnylam will present multiple new analyses from the Phase 3 HELIOS-B study of vutrisiran, which continue to support its use as a first-line treatment for patients with ATTR-CM, and further characterize its clinical profile across patients with a high disease burden, and in the context of concomitant therapies. Vutrisiran is the first and only transthyretin (TTR) silencer for ATTR-CM that delivers rapid knockdown of TTR at the source. Additional analyses being pr
Takeda Announces Positive Topline Results from Pivotal Phase 2/3 Clinical Trial of TAK-881 in Primary Immunodeficiency Disease (PID)4.5.2026 15:00:00 EEST | Press release
Takeda (TSE:4502/NYSE:TAK) today announced that TAK-881-3001, a pivotal Phase 2/3 clinical trial in patients with Primary Immunodeficiency Disease (PID), met its primary endpoint, which demonstrated pharmacokinetic (PK) comparability between the investigational TAK-881 [Immune Globulin Subcutaneous (Human), 20% Solution (SCIG 20%) with Recombinant Human Hyaluronidase] and HYQVIA [Immune Globulin Infusion (Human) 10% with Recombinant Human Hyaluronidase]. Additionally, secondary endpoints showed that TAK-881, a SCIG 20% facilitated with hyaluronidase, demonstrated safety, efficacy and tolerability profiles comparable to HYQVIA, an established SCIG 10% facilitated with hyaluronidase. These findings support the potential of TAK-881 to deliver the required immunoglobulin (IG) dose for PID patients in half the volume of HYQVIA, reducing infusion duration while maintaining flexible, up to once-monthly dosing for patients (every three or four weeks for PID). The TAK-881-3001 clinical trial ev
Ouster Releases The REV8 OS Family: The World’s First Native Color Lidar4.5.2026 13:00:00 EEST | Press release
Ouster, Inc. (Nasdaq: OUST) (“Ouster” or the “Company”), a leader in sensing and perception for Physical AI, announced today its new family of OS digital lidar sensors, Rev8, powered by its next-generation L4 Ouster Silicon. Ouster Rev8 features the world’s first patented native color lidar sensors, provides up to double the range and resolution of the previous generation, and is designed for functional safety, reliability, affordability, and scale. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260504718668/en/ The REV8 OS Family: The World's First Native Color Lidar. L4 Ouster Silicon: Ouster’s breakthrough L4 architecture doubles the range and resolution of its lidar over the prior generation, adds native-color sensing, and is designed for functional safety. Based on patented Ouster Silicon with embedded Fujifilm color science, the L4 chip results in exquisite color data and hardware-enabled HDR. It boasts 42.9 GMACs of p
NIQ Research Reveals New Rules of Commerce: AI Is Beginning to Decide What Consumers Buy4.5.2026 13:00:00 EEST | Press release
NielsenIQ (NYSE: NIQ) has announced the release of its new global report, The Commerce Revolution: Where East Meets West, which examines how Eastern-led commerce innovation and Western retail media monetization are colliding to reshape global consumer commerce. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260428841965/en/ The report finds live, social, and quick commerce—long scaled across Asia—now drive most incremental digital growth worldwide, while Western markets accelerate adoption as these formats localize. At the same time, retail media networks (RMNs) have become one of the fastest‑growing advertising channels globally, with US retail media ad spend projected to reach $107.6 billion (USD) in 2026. Beyond this, the report finds that previously siloed operational functions of sellers are beginning to blur boundaries. Payment platforms and rapid fulfillment models from the East are converging with the monetization mo
OPAQUE Acquires Abu Dhabi-Developed Cryptographic AI Technology from TII, Extending Confidential AI Across the Full Lifecycle with Post-Quantum Protection4.5.2026 11:23:00 EEST | Press release
OPAQUE, the Confidential AI company headquartered in San Francisco, California, today announced it has acquired advanced cryptographic AI technologies from the Technology Innovation Institute (TII), the applied research pillar of Abu Dhabi's Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC). The acquired technology — already proven in real-world use cases — adds two critical capabilities to OPAQUE's platform: confidential AI model training powered by advanced cryptographic techniques such as multi-party computation and fully homomorphic encryption, as well as post-quantum cryptographic protections. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260504705475/en/ OPAQUE Acquires Abu Dhabi-Developed Cryptographic AI Technology from TII, Extending Confidential AI Across the Full Lifecycle with Post-Quantum Protection (Photo: AETOSWire) Founded by researchers from UC Berkeley's RISELab, and now with this acquisition, OPAQUE supports Co
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom