The leading assignee in this dataset holds 134 records out of 1,754 in scope, with the next four ranked assignees each holding fewer than half that count. Together the top 5 assignees account for 20.4% of all records, and the top 10 account for 29.5%. That leaves the majority of filings spread across a long tail of equipment vendors, biologic sponsors and ingredient companies, so no single company controls the field outright.

Filing peaked in 2021 at 123 records and had fallen to 45 by 2024, a -63% decline over that three-year span, which is the most recent period that can be read as a complete year of publications. Filings for 2025 and 2026 look lower still in the raw counts, but that is expected: publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the newest years are always undercounted. The honest read is a pullback from a 2021 peak, not a field in terminal decline.

Medicinal preparation claims under A61K appear in 67.6% of the 1,754 records, and drying-process claims under F26B appear in 37.2% — the two classes overlap substantially, meaning most filers claim a specific formulation together with a specific drying process rather than either alone. Therapeutic-activity claims (A61P, 16.9%) and peptide/protein claims (C07K, 14.7%) trail behind. A smaller cluster of food-application filings sits under A23L at 3.5% of records, reflecting freeze-drying’s use outside biologics.