In 2023, the FDA approved IZERVAY for an untreatable form of blindness. The drug isn't a small molecule. It isn't an antibody. It's an aptamer—a short strand of DNA that folds like origami and binds to its target with precision. Most people have never heard the word. But aptamers are becoming one of the most versatile molecular tools in biotech, and artificial intelligence just handed them rocket fuel.

What Aptamers Are and How They Bind

An aptamer is a short, single-stranded piece of DNA or RNA—typically 20 to 80 nucleotides long—that folds into a specific three-dimensional shape and binds tightly to a target molecule. That target can be a protein, a virus, a bacterial toxin, a cancer biomarker, even a whole cell. The binding is specific, like a key fitting one lock, and strong—often matching or exceeding the grip of an antibody.

Aptamers are chemically synthesized. No living cells required. You design the sequence. You order it from a lab. It arrives stable at room temperature. Compare that to antibodies, which require immunizing animals, harvesting cells, and maintaining cold chains from factory to clinic.

Think of aptamers as molecular Velcro, custom-designed to grab exactly what you want. Antibodies do the same job, but aptamers are cheaper, tougher, and easier to modify. They're the engineered replacement for biology's original binding toolkit.

SELEX: The Selection Process That Builds Aptamers

Aptamers are discovered through SELEX—Systematic Evolution of Ligands by EXponential enrichment. The process mirrors natural selection in a test tube.

Start with a library of random DNA or RNA sequences. We're talking 10¹⁴ to 10¹⁵ unique molecules—more combinations than stars in the observable universe. Expose this library to your target. Most sequences ignore it. A few stick.

Wash away the weak binders. Amplify the strong ones using PCR. Repeat. After 8 to 15 rounds, you're left with a handful of high-affinity winners.

The whole process used to take months of lab work. Now, AI platforms like DeepAptamer, AIoptamer, and SPARK-seq predict binding affinity and 3D folding with 85 to 95 percent accuracy in validation studies. Discovery time drops to days or weeks. Some labs now achieve single-round selection—the algorithm designs candidates so good they work on the first try.

Why Aptamers Outperform Antibodies in Key Applications

Aptamers solve several problems that have plagued antibodies for decades.

Cost and Speed

Antibody production requires animals, cell cultures, purification pipelines, and strict quality control. Aptamers are synthesized chemically, like ordering a custom DNA primer. Production time drops from months to days. Cost drops by orders of magnitude—one biotech founder reported their aptamer-based diagnostic cost one-tenth the price of the antibody equivalent.

Stability

Antibodies degrade without refrigeration. Aptamers store at room temperature for years. That eliminates cold-chain logistics—critical for point-of-care diagnostics in rural clinics or low-resource settings.

Size

Antibodies are large proteins, around 150 kilodaltons (a measure of molecular weight). Aptamers are tiny, 5 to 25 kilodaltons. Small size means better tissue penetration. A cancer-targeting aptamer can slip into a tumor where an antibody would struggle.

Modifiability

Want to attach a fluorescent tag? A chemotherapy drug? A nanoparticle? Aptamers are nucleic acids—easy to modify with standard chemistry. Antibodies require complex conjugation protocols.

Reproducibility

Every batch of chemically synthesized aptamers is identical. Antibodies, produced biologically, vary batch to batch. For diagnostics and therapeutics, consistency isn't a luxury. It's regulatory survival.

Current Diagnostic and Therapeutic Uses

Aptamers are already deployed in multiple clinical and commercial applications.

Diagnostics

Aptamers now power biosensors for cancer biomarkers like PSA for prostate cancer, infectious diseases, and environmental toxins. SomaLogic's SOMAmer platform measures thousands of proteins in a single blood sample, enabling large-scale proteomics research that would be prohibitively expensive with antibodies.

Therapeutics

IZERVAY, approved in 2023 for geographic atrophy—a leading cause of blindness—proved aptamers can clear regulatory hurdles and reach patients. Clinical trials show the drug reduces lesion growth in affected retinal tissue. Other aptamer drugs are in trials for cancer, clotting disorders, and inflammatory diseases. The therapeutic pipeline is expanding, driven by companies like Aptadel Therapeutics, Duet Biotherapeutics, and NeoVentures.

Drug Delivery

Attach a chemotherapy drug to an aptamer that binds cancer cells, and you've built a guided missile. The aptamer ferries the payload directly to diseased tissue, sparing healthy cells. Early clinical trials suggest promise for reducing side effects while maintaining efficacy.

Environmental Monitoring

Aptamers detect pesticides, heavy metals, and allergens in food and water. They're faster and cheaper than traditional lab assays, making real-time field testing practical.

Market Growth and Commercial Adoption

The global aptamer market was $3.05 billion in 2025 and is forecast to reach $13.33 billion by 2034, with a compound annual growth rate of 16.94 percent, according to IMARC Group's 2025 global market report. Alternative projections from Market Research Future estimate the market at $3.274 billion in 2024, forecasting $23.241 billion by 2035 with a CAGR of 19.5 percent. Mordor Intelligence reports more conservative figures: $2.05 billion in 2025 reaching $4.03 billion by 2030, CAGR 14.49 percent.

The U.S. aptamer market was $950.3 million in 2023 and is forecast to reach $4.23 billion by 2030, with a CAGR of 24.3 percent, per Grand View Research. Spherical Insights projects U.S. market growth from $1,156.9 million in 2024 to $11,356.8 million by 2035, CAGR 23.08 percent.

Growth drivers include rising chronic disease prevalence, demand for personalized medicine, and the search for faster, cheaper alternatives to antibodies. Asia-Pacific is expanding rapidly, with biotech R&D infrastructure investments in China, India, and South Korea.

Key players include Aptamer Group (UK), known for Optimer® binders used in diagnostics and research tools; Base Pair Biotechnologies (USA), which specializes in ultra-fast aptamer selection for biosensors; and SomaLogic, whose SOMAmer reagents power high-throughput proteomics. Startups like NeoVentures, Aptadel, and Duet Biotherapeutics are pushing next-generation therapeutics and targeted delivery platforms.

Base Pair focuses on speed—selection in days rather than weeks. SomaLogic owns the proteomics platform play. NeoVentures and Duet are betting on aptamer-drug conjugates for oncology. Each company's edge lies in its selection platform, chemical modifications, or clinical partnerships.

AI Tools Accelerating Aptamer Discovery

Artificial intelligence is compressing aptamer development timelines from months to days. Traditional SELEX required iterative rounds of lab work. Modern machine learning models predict how a sequence will fold, which structures will bind the target, and how to optimize affinity—all computationally, before synthesizing a single molecule.

Platforms like AIoptamer and SPARK-seq analyze binding data, learn structural patterns, and generate optimized candidates. DeepAptamer uses deep learning to predict aptamer-target interactions with accuracy rivaling experimental validation. In 2025 and 2026, AI-biotech funding surged past $2.5 billion, much of it flowing into aptamer design tools and generative models.

The workflow is concrete: researchers input a target protein structure, the AI trains on thousands of known aptamer-target binding datasets, outputs candidate sequences ranked by predicted affinity, and validation experiments confirm binding in the lab. Labs now screen millions of theoretical sequences computationally, synthesize only the best candidates, and achieve high-affinity binders in a fraction of the time and cost.

This isn't incremental improvement. It's a step-function change in how molecular tools are discovered.

Challenges Slowing Widespread Deployment

Oligonucleotide synthesis at industrial scale remains expensive. For diagnostics or research reagents, current manufacturing works fine. But therapeutic aptamers require kilogram-scale production, and cost curves haven't flattened as quickly as hoped. The bottleneck isn't chemistry—it's throughput and purification at volume. Companies are investing in scalable synthesis platforms, but mass production for blockbuster drugs is still a work in progress.

Regulatory pathways for new therapeutic aptamers can be lengthy. IZERVAY blazed the trail, establishing precedent for FDA approval, but each new aptamer drug must prove safety and efficacy in clinical trials. Unlike biosimilars, which follow established antibody pathways, novel aptamers often require full Phase I–III trials. That means years and hundreds of millions of dollars before reaching patients.

Antibodies still dominate certain clinical niches—particularly where decades of infrastructure, clinical experience, and insurance reimbursement favor the incumbent technology. Aptamers excel where cost, stability, or modifiability matter most. They struggle where antibody infrastructure is entrenched and "good enough" already wins.

What Comes Next for Aptamer Technology

Aptamers are moving from niche academic tool to mainstream biotech platform. The combination of chemical simplicity, AI-driven design, and proven clinical success is attracting capital, talent, and regulatory attention.

Within five to ten years, expect aptamers in everyday rapid diagnostics—home tests for flu, strep, or early cancer markers that work as easily as a pregnancy test. Personalized medicine will lean on aptamer-based proteomics to profile individual patients and tailor treatments. Pandemic preparedness will benefit from aptamer biosensors that detect novel pathogens faster than antibody-based assays.

What remains unknown: Can synthesis costs drop enough to compete with antibodies in high-volume therapeutic markets? Will regulatory agencies streamline approval pathways for aptamer therapeutics, or will each drug face full de novo review? How will aptamers perform in complex biological environments where enzymes degrade unmodified DNA and RNA?

The technology isn't flashy. It's not CRISPR or mRNA vaccines. But aptamers are becoming one of the most versatile molecular tools of the 21st century—quietly solving problems antibodies couldn't, and doing it faster and cheaper.