Xinlai Cheng and Ivan Đikić receive Innovation Award 2026

PROXIDRUGS scientist Xinlai Cheng and Cluster Speaker Ivan Đikić from Goethe University Frankfurt have received one of the prizes of the Innovation Award of the German BioRegions 2026 for their project “SpliceTACs: First-in-class spliceosome-targeting degraders.”

The project had previously been selected as one of six finalists in this year’s competition and was presented on April 21, 2026, during the German Biotechnology Days in Leipzig to a high-level audience of investors, company representatives, researchers, and other participants from the biotech sector.

At the heart of the award-winning approach are USP39-SpliceTACs – first-in-class degraders designed to selectively degrade a previously difficult-to-target, cancer-relevant regulator of spliceosome fidelity. Together, Cheng and Đikić are developing a new therapeutic strategy for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma. The goal is to selectively weaken tumor cells by disrupting RNA and proteostasis control.

Over the past months, the team has achieved important milestones: they generated a first series of USP39 degraders, identified active candidates with robust USP39 degradation, and received highly positive feedback in innovation and investor discussions.

The award highlights the strong translational potential of the project and demonstrates how innovative approaches from the PROXIDRUGS community can open up new avenues for diseases that remain difficult to treat.