PROTAC Design Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
PROTAC Design and Linker Optimization Patents: Who Holds the Claims
49.4% concentration. The top five assignees combined hold 130 of 263 records in scope — just under half the field sits with a handful of filers. Filings climbed from 12 in 2017 to a peak of 51 in 2024, up 11% from 46 in 2021 over that three-year span. 2025 and 2026 figures are understated because publication has not caught up with filing.
- 1KYMERA THERAPEUTICS INC36
- 2CORNELL UNIVERSITY25
- 3RGT UNIV OF CALIFORNIA25
- 4YALE UNIVERSITY22
- 5ARVINAS OPERATIONS INC22
See the full protac design and linker optimization analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions on PROTAC design patents
How concentrated is PROTAC linker and design patent ownership?
Fairly concentrated at the top. The five leading assignees combined hold 130 of the 263 records in scope, or 49.4% of the field, and the top ten extend that to 75.7%. That leaves a long tail: the ranking covers 81 companies in total, with most holding only a handful of records each. A new filer should expect dense prior art near the leaders and comparatively open ground further down the ranking.
Is PROTAC patent filing activity still growing in 2026?
Filing activity grew from 46 records in 2021 to 51 in 2024, an 11% increase over that three-year window, with 2024 the highest filing year recorded so far. The 2025 and 2026 counts appear lower, but that reflects the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication rather than an actual drop in activity. Treat any apparent decline in the most recent one to two years as incomplete data, not a trend.
What patent classes cover PROTAC and bifunctional degrader compounds?
The dominant classes are A61K (medicinal preparations), present on 79.8% of the 263 records, and C07D (heterocyclic compounds), on 68.8%. A61P (therapeutic activity of compounds) appears on 47.9% of records. Peptide- and protein-based claims under C07K are comparatively rare at 15.2%, and enzyme- or DNA-based measurement classes such as C12Q sit under 2%, marking those as thinner areas of the claim landscape.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on PROTAC Design and Linker Optimization covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.