Two degrader deals. One Monday. $3.3B.

Roche put up to $2.3B behind Nurix’s BTK degrader. Hours later, J&J bought Firefly Bio and its degrader-antibody conjugate platform for $1B cash. Both targets are already clinically validated.

That’s the shift. Every degrader licensing, option, and M&A deal since 2019, 60 in all, shows it.

For years, the answer was platforms. 46 of the 60 deals named no specific target, buying a discovery engine instead. Pharma was buying engines, not yet betting on proven biology.

2026 broke the pattern. Platform deals haven’t vanished, but 4 of 7 this year hit targets with an approved or Phase 3 drug already on them: BTK, ER, CDK2, KRAS. Deals are tilting toward proven targets.

If 2026 is the template, chances are that the next degrader deal won’t chase a new target. It will go after an existing one.