Antifungal & Antimicrobial Topical Patents: Top Companies, Trends 2026
- Filing has cooled from its 2018 peak. 88 filings that year against 60 in 2021 and 45 in 2024 — a 25% decline over that three-year span, though 2025-26 figures are still filling in.
- No single company dominates. The leader holds 146 records out of 1,730, and the top 5 combined account for just 24.0% of all records in scope — well short of a concentrated field.
- Medicinal preparations claims dwarf everything else. A61K covers 87.5% of records, while cosmetics use (A61Q) and sterilising/disinfecting (A61L) sit far behind at 13.5% and 4.9% respectively.
Filing growth compares 2021 (60 records) with 2024 (45) — 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 1,730 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
A fragmented field built on old, heavily cited foundations
Antifungal and antimicrobial topical patents cluster around a narrow technical problem: getting an active compound through the nail plate or skin barrier at a concentration that inhibits fungal or microbial growth without provoking resistance or early relapse. The search scope spans 1,730 records filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026, concentrated overwhelmingly under A61K medicinal-preparations claims, with therapeutic-activity (A61P) and cosmetics-use (A61Q) claims layered on top of the same underlying formulations.
The most-cited records in the corpus date back to the 1990s antimicrobial-composition filings, which still anchor citation counts well above 180 each — a sign of foundational influence rather than current commercial relevance. Recent activity instead shows up in nail-lacquer vehicle and boron-containing small-molecule filings, where formulation and delivery mechanics, not the active ingredient itself, are the more contested ground.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the final one to two years in any trend chart will always understate true filing activity. The figures below use the most recent complete years as the basis for any growth statement.
Filings peaked in 2018 and have since declined by a quarter
Annual filings ran from 81 in 2017 to a peak of 88 in 2018, then eased to 60 by 2021 and 45 by 2024 — a 25% decline over that three-year window. 2025 and 2026 figures (down to 18 so far) are undercounts still in the publication pipeline, not evidence of a further collapse.
Medicinal preparations claims dominate; sterilising and disinfecting claims are a minor tail
A61K appears on 87.5% of the 1,730 records in scope, with A61P (therapeutic activity, 45.2%) and A61Q (cosmetics use, 13.5%) the next most common. Heterocyclic (C07D, 10.1%) and peptide/protein (C07K, 8.2%) chemistry classes sit further down, marking where active-compound claims diverge from formulation claims.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,730 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Antifungal and Antimicrobial Topicals with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about antifungal and antimicrobial topicals and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art still shapes freedom-to-operate
Coloured keratolytic nail lacquer — Oystershell
The patent describes a liquid nail lacquer composition combining a pharmaceutically active compound with an aqueous polymer dispersion that forms a film on drying at standard ambient conditions, along with a method for making it and a container for the composition.Filed by Oystershell NV, published 2023-04-18. Illustrative of the current wave of vehicle and delivery-format claims layered on top of long-established active compounds.
View full record| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5326567A | Antimicrobial compositions useful for medical applications | 226 |
| 2 | US20060234981A1 | Boron-containing small molecules | 203 |
| 3 | US6231875B1 | Acidified composition for topical treatment of nail and skin conditions | 191 |
| 4 | US6042845A | Anti fungal treatment of nails | 185 |
| 5 | US5607683A | Antimicrobial compositions useful for medical applications | 181 |
| 6 | WO2006089067A2 | Boron-containing small molecules | 174 |
| 7 | US20070155699A1 | Boron-containing small molecules | 173 |
| 8 | US5662913A | Antimicrobial compositions useful for medical applications | 160 |
| 9 | US7582621B2 | Boron-containing small molecules | 150 |
| 10 | US6224887B1 | Antifungal nail lacquer and method using same | 141 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations within this corpus — treat them as a signal of influence, not of current commercial weight.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three patterns stand out once the raw counts are read against each other: a founder generation of citation-heavy compound patents, a shift toward vehicle and delivery-format claims, and a field that has never consolidated around one or two dominant players.
Leadership is real but not exclusive
The leading assignee holds 146 records, well ahead of the field, yet the top 5 combined account for only 24.0% of all 1,730 records in scope and the top 10 for 35.0%. That leaves a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants with room to build a position.
Formulation claims outnumber active-compound claims
Medicinal-preparation claims (A61K) appear on the overwhelming majority of records, while organo-metallic and non-carbon compound claims (C07F, 8.0%) and peptide chemistry (C07K, 8.2%) are comparatively rare. Vehicle and delivery mechanics are where most recent claim activity sits.
Volume has eased from its 2018 peak
Filings fell from 60 in 2021 to 45 in 2024, a 25% decline over three complete years, after peaking at 88 in 2018. Whether this reflects genuine cooling or simply a maturing formulation base is not resolvable from filing counts alone.
Old antimicrobial-composition patents still anchor the field
The single most-cited record in scope, an antimicrobial-composition patent, carries 226 citations — well ahead of newer filings. Any new formulation claim in this space is likely to be read against this and a small cluster of similarly aged compositions.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to antifungal and antimicrobial topicals, with the prior art for and against each one.
A fragmented leaderboard with a handful of establishing pharma names
No assignee approaches majority share. The leader's 146 records sit well ahead of fifth place at 40 and tenth place at 36, but the gap closes fast down the ranking, and momentum data shows several previously active names recording zero filings in the latest year — likely a mix of publication lag and genuine pullback.
A clear leader without a dominant share
The top-ranked assignee's 146 records outpace the rest of the field individually, but that lead does not translate into field-wide control: the top 5 combined still account for only 24.0% of all 1,730 records in scope.
The drop-off from fifth to tenth is gradual, not steep
Fifth place holds 40 records and tenth holds 36 — a narrow four-record gap across five ranking positions, suggesting a genuinely competitive mid-field rather than a sharp cliff after the leaders.
Co-filing is concentrated around one applicant's inventor network
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the data, with the strongest links (each at 6 shared filings) all centred on the same corporate applicant paired with individual named inventors — a pattern typical of an in-house R&D team rather than cross-company joint ventures.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Anacor Pharmaceuticals | 0 | — |
| Polichem SA | 0 | — |
| NovaBiotics Ltd | 0 | — |
| Dow Pharmaceutical Sciences | 0 | — |
| Blueberry Therapeutics | 0 | — |
| NexMed Holdings Inc | 0 | — |
| Kaken Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field with an ageing foundation of compound patents and an active, more fragmented layer of formulation and delivery claims sitting on top of it.
Map freedom-to-operate against the most-cited compositions
Before committing to an active-compound claim, check it against the small cluster of 1990s-era antimicrobial-composition patents that still carry the highest citation counts in this corpus.
Run a freedom-to-operate checkProbe the under-claimed vehicle and delivery branches
Boron-containing small molecules, aqueous polymer film formers and peptide-based actives show lower class density than the core A61K space — each merits a closer look before assuming the ground is occupied.
Explore white space in EurekaWatch the mid-field for consolidation signals
With the top 10 holding only 35.0% of records combined, a narrowing gap between fifth and tenth place suggests active competition rather than settled dominance — track filing momentum here over the next two publication cycles.
Track assignee momentumFrequently asked questions
The ranking covers 100 companies across 1,730 records in scope, with the leading assignee holding 146 records. However, concentration at the top is limited: the top 5 assignees combined account for only 24.0% of all records, and the top 10 for 35.0%, meaning there is a substantial long tail of smaller filers rather than a small group of dominant players. This makes the field more open to new entrants than the leader's individual count might suggest.
Filings peaked in 2018 at 88 in a given year, then declined to 60 by 2021 and 45 by 2024 — a 25% drop over that three-year span. Figures for 2025 and 2026 appear lower still, but publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so those most recent years are undercounts rather than proof of a further slowdown. The honest read is a field that has cooled from its 2018 peak but has not yet shown its true 2025-26 trajectory.
A61K (medicinal preparations) is by far the most common class, appearing on 87.5% of the 1,730 records in scope. A61P (therapeutic activity of compounds) follows at 45.2%, and A61Q (cosmetics use) at 13.5%. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should not be read as mutually exclusive categories.
US11628145B2, assigned to Oystershell NV and published in 2023, claims a liquid nail lacquer composition that combines a pharmaceutically active compound with an aqueous polymer dispersion, forming a film on drying at standard ambient conditions, along with a corresponding method and container. It is a formulation and delivery-format claim rather than an active-compound claim, so it primarily constrains vehicle and film-forming approaches to nail lacquer delivery, not the choice of antifungal or antimicrobial active itself. Anyone designing a competing nail lacquer vehicle should review its specific film-forming and container claims closely rather than assume it covers the active ingredient generally.
Class-density data points to several under-claimed branches relative to the dominant A61K/A61P core: boron-containing small-molecule vehicles, aqueous polymer nail-lacquer film formers, peptide-based antimicrobial actives, and organo-metallic non-carbon compounds, each carrying meaningfully lower record counts than the core medicinal-preparations space. These are not guaranteed-clear areas, but their lower density relative to the core claim space makes them worth a targeted freedom-to-operate check before assuming the ground is occupied.
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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.