Amorphous Solid Dispersion Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- Filings peaked in 2021 at 104 and fell to 40 by 2024 a 62% drop over that three-year span, though 2025–2026 counts are still filling in as publication catches up with filing.
- The top 5 assignees hold 28.9% of all 874 records and the top 10 hold 46.8% — concentration is real but not absolute, leaving room below the leaders.
- 93.7% of records sit in A61K, but only 1.8% touch additive manufacturing the core medicinal-preparation claims are dense; 3D-printing-adjacent processing is comparatively open.
Filing growth compares 2021 (104 records) with 2024 (40) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 874 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Amorphous solid dispersion (ASD) manufacturing patents cover the routes used to lock a poorly soluble drug into a non-crystalline state stable enough to dose and manufacture at scale — principally hot melt extrusion and spray drying, with claim language concentrated around polymer selection, drug loading, residual solvent control, glass transition temperature and downstream tabletability. This dataset spans 874 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026, drawn from search terms tied to those two processes and the specific technical control points that determine whether a dispersion actually stays amorphous on the shelf.
The records are ranked by patent family across 100 assignees, giving a fair view of who is actually building a portfolio versus filing once and moving on. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend understate real filing activity — a pattern to keep in mind when reading the 2025–2026 tail as a plateau rather than a definitive decline.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 874-record set: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
A sharp run-up, then a pullback from the 2021 peak
Filings rose from 42 in 2017 to a peak of 104 in 2021, then declined to 40 by 2024 — a 62% fall over that three-year window. Treat 2025 and 2026 as still-arriving data rather than a confirmed continuation of the decline, since publication lag means recent filings have not all surfaced yet.
A61K dominates; adjacent processing classes are thin
A61K (medicinal preparations) appears on 93.7% of the 874 records, with A61P (therapeutic activity) on 27.5% and C07D (heterocyclic compounds) on 10.9% — the expected core for a drug-formulation dataset. Processing-adjacent classes are far thinner: B29C (plastics shaping, relevant to extrusion) sits at 3.9%, C08L (polymer compositions) at 2.4%, B01F (mixing and stirring) at 2.2%, and B33Y (additive manufacturing) at just 1.8%, since a record can carry several classes these figures add to more than 100% of the record total.
Shares are the percentage of the 874 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Amorphous Solid Dispersion Manufacturing with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about amorphous solid dispersion manufacturing and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe prior art doing the most citing work
US20230076047A1 — "Nano-dry melting" (Hovione Farmaciência)
The application discloses preparing an amorphous solid dispersion from an aqueous suspension of nano-particles with a defined solubility ceiling, then nano-dry-melting that suspension over a very short time window at a temperature pinned relative to the glass transition temperature of the solid components as measured by DSC under a specified ISO method and heating rate.The claim's teeth sit in the tight process window (sub-300-second exposure) and the DSC-anchored temperature band relative to Tg — both specific enough to be a design-around target rather than a blanket claim.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6706283B1 | Controlled release by extrusion of solid amorphous dispersions of drugs | 307 |
| 2 | EP1027887A2 | Matrix controlled release device | 113 |
| 3 | WO2011156578A1 | Solid compositions | 103 |
| 4 | US20110312973A1 | Solid compositions | 99 |
| 5 | EP1027888A2 | Osmotic system for delivery of solid amorphous dispersions of drugs | 94 |
| 6 | US20090053315A1 | Thermo-Kinetic Mixing for Pharmaceutical Applications | 72 |
| 7 | WO2011112558A2 | Solid compositions | 71 |
| 8 | WO2016016665A1 | A method of preparing amorphous solid dispersion in submicron range by co-precipitation | 70 |
| 9 | US7795237B2 | Pharmaceutical composition and process | 67 |
| 10 | WO2012122279A1 | Solid dispersion formulations and methods of use thereof | 60 |
Citation counts inside this corpus skew toward older filings by nature of accumulation time — read them as a signal of influence on later filers, not as a ranking of current commercial importance.
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Three read-outs from the concentration, class and citation data that matter more than the raw counts on their own.
The top is crowded, the middle is not
The top 5 assignees combined account for 28.9% of all 874 records and the top 10 for 46.8% — meaningful concentration, but it still leaves the majority of filings spread across a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants. A new entrant is not filing into a monopoly; it is filing into a field with one dense cluster and a lot of open ground beside it.
The 2021 peak has cooled, not disappeared
Filings ran from 42 in 2017 up to a peak of 104 in 2021, then down to 40 by 2024, a 62% fall over three years. Several of the leading assignees show zero filings in the latest recorded year, which is consistent with either a genuine slowdown at the top or simply the publication lag still catching up — the two are hard to separate from this data alone.
Core formulation claims are dense; adjacent processing is not
A61K medicinal-preparation claims sit on 93.7% of records, effectively unavoidable for anyone in this space. But additive manufacturing (B33Y) at 1.8% and mixing/stirring (B01F) at 2.2% suggest processing-equipment and continuous-manufacturing angles carry far less claim density, even though they intersect directly with hot melt extrusion and spray drying practice.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to amorphous solid dispersion manufacturing, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked leaders come from large pharmaceutical originators, a specialist ASD process house, and university-linked research groups — but recent-year momentum has cooled across nearly all of them.
A single leader well ahead of the pack
The top-ranked assignee holds 81 records against 40 at fifth place and 24 at tenth — a steep drop-off after the leader rather than a gradual slope, which is typical of a field anchored by one long-running formulation portfolio.
University-industry pairing stands out
The strongest co-assignee pair in the dataset links a university research board with a dedicated dispersion-technology firm, filing together 19 times — evidence of a sustained joint R&D arrangement rather than a one-off collaboration.
Nearly all leaders show flat or falling recent activity
Several of the highest-ranked assignees, including large originators and the specialist process licensor, show zero filings in the latest recorded year, with one showing a full year-over-year drop. Given publication lag, this likely overstates the slowdown, but it still signals that the leaders are not currently expanding their claim footprint at the pace seen around the 2021 peak.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| AbbVie Inc | 0 | — |
| Board of Regents, The University of Texas System | 0 | — |
| Hanmi Pharm Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG | 0 | — |
| Merck Patent GmbH | 0 | -100% |
| Celgene Quanticel Research, Inc. | 0 | — |
| DisperSol Technologies LLC | 0 | — |
| AbbVie Ireland Unlimited Company | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The landscape points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, portfolio building, or scouting white space.
Check freedom-to-operate against the cited core
The most-cited records in this set, several dating to the early 2000s, still anchor citation chains across newer filings. Any new hot melt extrusion or spray drying process claim should be checked against these before drafting.
Explore prior art in EurekaMap the thin IPC branches to actual claims
Additive manufacturing, mixing/stirring and polymer-composition classes carry low record shares relative to A61K. That gap is worth verifying claim-by-claim rather than assumed as open.
Run a white space search in EurekaTrack the leaders' next moves, not just their totals
Flat recent-year counts at the top could mean genuine slowdown or publication lag. Either way, monitoring new filings from the leading assignees over the next reporting cycle will resolve which it is.
Set up assignee tracking in EurekaCommon questions on ASD manufacturing patents
No single patent dominates outright, but a handful of early filings — including US6706283B1 on controlled release by extrusion of solid amorphous dispersions and the related osmotic-delivery patent EP1027888A2 — are cited far more heavily than the rest of the corpus and function as the foundational prior art most later filings build on or design around. At the assignee level, one company leads the ranking with 81 records, well ahead of the rest, while the top 10 assignees together account for 46.8% of the 874 records in this dataset. That leaves the majority of filings spread thinly across many smaller filers rather than locked up entirely by the leader.
This dataset does not break out record counts separately by process route, so a direct head-to-head figure is not available here. What is clear from the IPC composition is that claims cluster overwhelmingly around the pharmaceutical formulation itself (A61K, 93.7% of records) rather than around process-specific equipment classes like B29C (plastics shaping, relevant to extrusion) at 3.9% or B01F (mixing) at 2.2%. That pattern suggests both routes are claimed mainly through their formulation outputs rather than through equipment-specific process patents, leaving the processing-equipment layer comparatively open for either route.
Filings peaked at 104 in 2021 and had fallen to 40 by 2024, a 62% decline over that three-year span, and several of the leading assignees show zero filings in the most recent recorded year. Part of this is likely a genuine pullback following a period of heavy investment in ASD process patents through the late 2010s. But publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 and 2026 figures in particular are still incomplete and should not be read as confirmation that the decline is continuing at the same rate.
The IPC composition points to additive manufacturing (B33Y, 1.8% of the 874 records), mixing and stirring control (B01F, 2.2%), and polymer-composition-specific claims (C08L, 2.4%) as the thinnest-covered branches relative to the dominant A61K formulation claims at 93.7%. These are areas where the underlying process — dispersion mixing, 3D-printing-based dosage forming, polymer blend specification — intersects directly with hot melt extrusion and spray drying practice but has not accumulated the same claim density. A first claim in these branches would likely center on a specific equipment configuration or polymer-blend ratio rather than the dispersion composition itself.
The strongest co-assignee pair in this dataset links a university research board with a specialist dispersion-technology company, appearing together on 19 records — a clear signal of a sustained joint development arrangement rather than a one-off filing. A second pairing links a major pharmaceutical originator with an individual inventor across 6 records. Out of 10 identified co-assignee pairs in the dataset, these two are the most consequential for understanding how research and commercial-scale process development are being combined in practice.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.