CAR-T Cell Therapy Patent Landscape 2026
CAR-T Cell Therapy Patent Landscape in 2026
CAR-T cell therapy is an academically anchored, pharma-partnered field with 17,418 patent families in scope, led by the University of Pennsylvania in a moderately concentrated competitive structure. Filing volume peaked in 2022 and has eased since, placing the field in a post-peak phase while the cumulative body of prior-art remains large and technically dense.
University of Pennsylvania leads a field split between academic institutions and biopharma
The University of Pennsylvania holds the top position in the applicant ranking, followed by the Regents of the University of California, Juno Therapeutics, the University of Texas System, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Novartis. Academic medical centers and research universities occupy four of the top six positions, reflecting the field’s origins in translational oncology research.
The top five filers account for approximately 20% of the combined patent records of the hundred largest filers — a moderate concentration level indicating that no single entity dominates and that meaningful activity is distributed across a broad second tier including Novartis, Kite Pharma, the U. S. government, Cellectis, and Iovance Biotherapeutics.
| # | Applicant | Patent records | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania | 2,423 | |
| 2 | Regents of the University of California | 1,751 | |
| 3 | Juno Therapeutics Inc. | 1,494 | |
| 4 | Board of Regents, The University of Texas System | 1,484 | |
| 5 | Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center | 1,433 | |
| 6 | Novartis AG | 1,393 | |
| 7 | Kite Pharma Inc. | 1,297 | |
| 8 | The Government of the United States of America (Department of Health and Human Services) | 1,259 | |
| 9 | Cellectis SA | 942 | |
| 10 | Iovance Biotherapeutics Inc. | 897 |
| # | Applicant | Patent records | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | Immatics Biotechnologies GmbH | 835 | |
| 12 | Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. | 786 | |
| 13 | Seattle Children’s Hospital | 783 | |
| 14 | City of Hope | 757 | |
| 15 | The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University | 753 | |
| 16 | Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc. | 692 | |
| 17 | Janssen Biotech Inc. | 685 | |
| 18 | Baylor College of Medicine | 669 | |
| 19 | Fate Therapeutics Inc. | 640 | |
| 20 | INST NAT DE LA SANTE & DE LA RECHERCHE MEDICALE (I… | 611 |
The academic leaders’ scale implies deep prior-art thickets around core CAR construct design, T-cell engineering, and adoptive transfer methods, which new entrants must navigate carefully. Commercial players like Novartis and Kite Pharma have built substantial portfolios through licensing and sponsored research arrangements with those same institutions.
Patent applications typically publish 18–24 months after filing, so figures for 2024–2025 undercount actual recent activity; trend comparisons are most reliable through 2022. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
Filing activity peaked in 2022; core biology classes dominate the technology mix
The annual filing trend and IPC technology composition together reveal a maturing field whose innovation focus has remained tightly clustered around protein engineering and cell biology, with only sparse coverage of adjacent instrumentation and diagnostic branches.
Annual filing trend
Filings rose steeply from 2017 through a 2022 peak and have eased in the years since. Counts for 2024–2026 are materially under-counted due to publication lag and should not be read as a sustained structural decline; the post-2022 softening in the fully published years (2023) is the more reliable signal.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
Three IPC classes — A61K (medicinal preparations), C07K (peptides and proteins), and C12N (microorganisms and genetic engineering) — account for the overwhelming majority of patent records, confirming that competitive activity is concentrated in therapeutic composition and genetic-engineering methods. Downstream branches such as G01N (material analysis and testing) and C12Q (enzyme/DNA-based testing) are represented at a fraction of that volume, signalling sparse coverage in assay and quality-control methods.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaHighly cited patent families surfaced by the query
Citation-heavy patent families returned by the query. Use this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents.
Small molecule adapter regulated, target specific …
In one embodiment, the invention provides a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell which is conjugated to a bi-functional molecule which is specific for both an extracellular binding domain of the chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell and prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA). The chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell contains a T cell signaling… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Use of Chimeric Antigen Receptor-Modified T-Cells … | 1,521 |
| 2 | Method and compositions for cellular immunotherapy | 1,166 |
| 3 | Double transgenic t cells comprising a car and a T… | 914 |
| 4 | Compositions for treatment of cancer | 854 |
| 5 | Methods for treatment of cancer | 836 |
| 6 | Chimeric antigen receptor and methods of use thereof | 619 |
| 7 | Chimeric antigen receptors targeting b-cell matura… | 601 |
| 8 | Method and compositions using a chimeric antigen r… | 600 |
Ranked by total forward citations. Citation counts favour older and broadly cited patent families, and broad or adjacent patents may appear when they match the search scope. Treat this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents.
What the competitive structure means for R&D investment decisions
Four dimensions — maturity, concentration, collaboration, and geography — each carry distinct implications for teams evaluating where to build, buy, or license in CAR-T cell therapy.
Post-peak field with a deep, entrenched prior-art base
Annual filing volume peaked in 2022 and has eased since, consistent with a field transitioning from rapid expansion to consolidation. The accumulated corpus of 17,418 patent families represents dense prior art across core CAR construct engineering, T-cell activation, and cancer immunotherapy methods. New entrants face a high freedom-to-operate burden and should prioritize differentiated approaches — next-generation antigen targets, allogeneic platforms, or combination modalities — to avoid the most crowded claim spaces.
Post-peak · consolidatingModerate concentration with a large, active second tier
The top five filers hold 20% of the combined records of the hundred largest filers, leaving 80% distributed across a broad group of universities, specialty biotechs, and large pharma. This structure means that coalition-building — through licensing, co-development, or acquisition of second-tier biotechs — remains a viable path to assembling a competitive position without facing a single dominant blocker. Gaps in the second tier include process development, manufacturing analytics, and combination-therapy engineering.
Moderate HHI · broad tier-2University–pharma co-filing is the dominant partnership model
The most active co-filing pair is the University of Pennsylvania and Novartis, with 436 jointly filed records — by far the largest collaboration in the dataset. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center co-files frequently with the Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research and with Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases. The U.S. government collaborates with Lentigen Technology and with Kite Pharma. These alliances reflect the translational path from academic discovery to clinical-stage product, and signal that pharma access to foundational university IP typically comes through sponsored research and licensing rather than internal development.
Academic–pharma alliancesU.S. dominates; Europe and WIPO PCT filings provide broad international reach
The United States is the leading jurisdiction by patent records, followed by the European Patent Office and WIPO PCT. Australia and Canada represent sizable secondary markets. Singapore appears as a notable Asian filing destination, likely reflecting regional clinical and manufacturing hubs. Coverage in other Asia-Pacific jurisdictions appears limited in this dataset, which may indicate either strategic focus on Western markets or a filing gap that competitors could exploit for freedom-to-operate.
U.S.-centric · broad PCTGo beyond the landscape: Eureka’s TRIZ Solution agent breaks down an R&D problem and returns patented concept solutions, each with a technical approach and cited patent & literature evidence.
| Applicant | Collaborator | Co-filings |
|---|---|---|
| The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania | Novartis AG | 436 |
| Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center | Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research | 142 |
| Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center | Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases | 139 |
| The Government of the United States of America (Department of Health and Human Services) | Lentigen Technology Inc. | 99 |
| Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center | Eureka Therapeutics Inc. | 83 |
| Autolus Limited | UCL Business Ltd. | 43 |
| Kite Pharma Inc. | The Government of the United States of America (Department of Health and Human Services) | 39 |
| Kite Pharma Inc. | Amgen Inc. | 36 |
| Juno Therapeutics Inc. | Celgene Corporation | 25 |
| Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center | The Government of the United States of America (Department of Health and Human Services) | 24 |
Co-filing pairs, ranked by the number of jointly-filed patent families.
University of Pennsylvania and Kite Pharma: contrasting trajectories among top filers
The top filers span academic research institutions and commercial biotechs, with technology emphasis concentrated in peptide/protein engineering and medicinal preparations across all major players. Recent momentum diverges sharply, with some commercial players accelerating while several academic and early biotech filers show declining recent activity.
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is the top-ranked filer with 2,423 patent records, anchored in C07K 14 (peptides and proteins), A61K 35 (medicinal preparations), and C07K 16 (antibody-related proteins) — reflecting broad coverage of CAR construct design and cell therapy compositions. Recent momentum shows a –11% trend versus the prior period, consistent with the field’s overall post-peak consolidation rather than any loss of foundational position. Its deep collaboration with Novartis (436 co-filed records) extends its commercial footprint well beyond the academic estate.
patent records: 2,423Kite Pharma
Kite Pharma ranks seventh with 1,297 patent records and is the only top-eight filer showing positive recent momentum at +19%, standing out in a field where most leaders are flat or declining. Its technology emphasis spans C07K 14, A61K 35, and A61K 39 (immunological preparations), indicating a focus on both CAR protein engineering and finished immunotherapy product formulations. Kite’s growing activity, set against declining filings from Novartis (-61%) and Juno Therapeutics (-51%), suggests a deliberate portfolio-building strategy as the commercial landscape consolidates around Gilead’s cell therapy franchise.
patent records: 1,297| Applicant | Recent (3 yrs) | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania | 259 | ▼ -11% |
| Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center | 153 | ▬ -4% |
| Novartis AG | 65 | ▼ -61% |
| Regents of the University of California | 175 | ▼ -21% |
| Juno Therapeutics Inc. | 73 | ▼ -51% |
| Kite Pharma Inc. | 159 | ▲ +19% |
| The Government of the United States of America (Department of Health and Human Services) | 63 | ▼ -59% |
Assay development and enzyme-based testing are under-served relative to core therapy classes
Two IPC branches sit at a small fraction of the volume seen in the dominant biology classes, representing areas where the existing patent literature is sparse relative to their plausible technical relevance to CAR-T cell therapy development and quality control.
G01N · Material analysis & testing
This branch covers analytical and characterization methods — including flow cytometry, binding assays, and potency testing — that are directly applicable to CAR-T product release, in-process control, and mechanism-of-action studies. Its comparatively sparse representation suggests that the patent activity supporting CAR-T analytical workflows has lagged behind therapeutic composition filings. Organizations with strengths in bioanalytical platforms or cell therapy manufacturing quality systems could find relatively open claim space here, though they should verify freedom-to-operate against instrument-level IP held by diagnostics companies.
Search this in Eureka →C12Q · Measuring & testing involving enzymes/DNA
C12Q encompasses nucleic-acid-based detection and quantification methods, including PCR-based persistence monitoring, transgene copy-number assays, and gene-expression profiling of CAR-T products. These methods are central to clinical monitoring of CAR-T engraftment and durability yet represent a small fraction of the corpus. The entry path is technically accessible for molecular diagnostics companies or CROs developing companion assays, and the sparse filing density means foundational method claims may still be obtainable, subject to prior-art review.
Search this in Eureka →How top filers differ in their technology route emphasis across IPC classes
Strength of each leader across the main technology routes.
| Player | C07K 14 · Peptides & proteins | A61K 35 · Medicinal preparations | C12N 5 · Microorganisms & genetic engineering | C07K 16 · Peptides & proteins | A61P 35 · Therapeutic activity of compounds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania | Strong · 784 | Strong · 661 | Strong · 494 | Strong · 647 | Strong · 403 |
| Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center | Strong · 371 | Strong · 343 | Strong · 331 | Strong · 320 | Strong · 215 |
| Novartis AG | Strong · 427 | Strong · 265 | Strong · 293 | Strong · 311 | Strong · 229 |
| Regents of the University of California | Strong · 354 | Strong · 360 | Strong · 307 | Strong · 282 | Moderate · 155 |
| Juno Therapeutics Inc. | Strong · 281 | Strong · 337 | Strong · 235 | Strong · 175 | Strong · 261 |
| Kite Pharma Inc. | Strong · 304 | Strong · 264 | Strong · 178 | Strong · 160 | Strong · 157 |
| The Government of the United States of America (Department of Health and Human Services) | Strong · 331 | Strong · 206 | Absent | Strong · 296 | Strong · 180 |
Frequently asked questions
The corpus in scope contains 17,418 patent families covering CAR-T cell therapy globally. The United States is the leading jurisdiction, followed by the European Patent Office and WIPO PCT filings.
The University of Pennsylvania is the top-ranked filer with 2,423 patent records, followed by the Regents of the University of California with 1,751, Juno Therapeutics with 1,494, the University of Texas System with 1,484, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center with 1,433.
Annual filing volume peaked in 2022 and has eased since, placing the field in a post-peak phase. Figures for 2024 and 2025 are materially under-counted due to publication lag and should not be interpreted as a structural decline on their own; the multi-year growth window leading to the 2022 peak was substantial.
The University of Pennsylvania and Novartis are the most active co-filing pair with 436 jointly filed records. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center co-files with the Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research (142 records) and with Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases (139 records). The U.S. government collaborates with Lentigen Technology (99 records) and Kite Pharma (39 records).
The most-cited document in the corpus is titled ‘Use of Chimeric Antigen Receptor-Modified T-Cells’ with 1,521 citations, followed by ‘Method and compositions for cellular immunotherapy’ with 1,166 citations and ‘Double transgenic T cells comprising a CAR and a TCR’ with 914 citations. These represent foundational disclosures in CAR construct design and cellular immunotherapy methods.
The two most under-served adjacent branches relative to the dominant therapy classes are G01N (material analysis and testing, covering analytical characterization and potency assays) and C12Q (measuring and testing involving enzymes and DNA, covering nucleic-acid-based persistence monitoring). Both have plausible technical relevance to CAR-T manufacturing quality control and clinical monitoring but account for a small fraction of the corpus.
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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.