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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/cell-culture-media-and-feed-optimization-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Bioprocessing · Patent LandscapeCell Culture Media and Feed Optimization Patents: Who Holds the Core Claims
- 80.3% concentration. The top 5 of 32 ranked assignees account for 110 of the 137 records in scope — this field is not fragmented, it is held.
- Filings peaked in 2018 and have not recovered. Sixteen records that year against 14 at the 2022 midpoint, a flat-to-declining trend through the most recent full years.
- C12N dominates; adjacent classes thin out fast. 98.5% of records touch C12N, but shares fall off sharply into fermentation, food-grade and materials classes — that drop-off is where the open ground sits.
137
Published Records
80%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-75%
3-Yr Growth (lag-adjusted)
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Field Overview
What this patent set actually covers
This landscape draws on 137 published records filed between 2015 and 2026 that combine cell culture media, chemically defined media or feed-strategy language with technical problem terms — nutrient depletion, lactate accumulation, titer improvement, raw material variability, media screening — and sit in the C12N5, C12M1 or C12N15 classification space. That search construction deliberately excludes media patents that never name a specific bioprocessing failure mode, which keeps the set focused on optimization claims rather than general formulation art.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent year in the trend line is understated by construction, not because interest has actually stopped. The more reliable read is the multi-year pattern: a peak in 2018, a flat midpoint in 2022, and heavy concentration among a small number of assignees that keep refiling around the same core problem set.
Filing activity and technology composition, 2015-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Cell Culture Media and Feed Optimization covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
The Numbers
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 137-record set: activity over time, and where those records sit across IPC subclasses. Because a single record can carry several IPC codes, the class shares below add up to more than 100% of the record total.
A peak in 2018, no recovery since
Filings ran from 2 in 2017 up to a peak of 16 in 2018, then settled near a midpoint of 14 in 2022 — flat to declining rather than growing, with the most recent year necessarily undercounted due to publication lag.
C12N carries the field; the tail is thin
C12N (microorganisms and genetic engineering) appears in 98.5% of the 137 records, with C07K (peptides and proteins) a distant second at 39.4%. Everything past C12P (17.5%) — medicinal preparations, food applications, biocides, plastics shaping, catalysis — sits under 10% of records, marking where claim density thins out.
Shares are the percentage of the 137 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Cell Culture Media and Feed Optimization covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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The most-cited prior art in this set
Representative Filing
Cell Culture Media Containing Combinations of Proteins (US20120315697A1)
INVITRIA, INC.
The present invention relates to cell culture media containing combinations of proteins, as well as methods of making the cell culture media, and methods of using the cell culture media to improve growth characteristics of cultured cells.Filed by Invitria, published 2012-12-13 — illustrative of the protein-combination approach to defined media that recurs across this landscape.
Highest-citation records in scope
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20050276794A1 | Composition and method for improving pancreatic islet cell survival | 93 |
| 2 | US20060073591A1 | Cell culture media | 67 |
| 3 | WO2011133902A2 | Cell culture medium comprising small peptides | 65 |
| 4 | US20100015713A1 | Components of cell culture media produced from plant cells | 54 |
| 5 | US20120315697A1 | Cell Culture Media Containing Combinations of Proteins | 43 |
| 6 | US20110262965A1 | Cell culture medium comprising small peptides | 35 |
| 7 | WO2013096858A1 | Cell culture media and methods | 26 |
| 8 | WO2007002762A2 | Components of cell culture media produced from plant cells | 20 |
| 9 | WO2014145091A1 | Cell culture media and methods of antibody production | 19 |
| 10 | US10618951B1 | Cell culture media containing combinations of proteins | 17 |
Citation counts reflect influence within the searched corpus and favour older filings; treat them as a signal of what shaped later claims, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Cell Culture Media and Feed Optimization covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the pattern means for a filing decision
The numbers point to a field where a small group of assignees built and kept refreshing a defensible core, while adjacent application classes stayed comparatively open.
Concentration
80.3%
of 137 records held by top 5 of 32 assignees
This is a held field, not a fragmented one
With 110 of 137 records sitting under five assignees, a new entrant is filing into occupied claim space on the core media-composition problem, not into a wide-open field. Freedom-to-operate work here needs to start with those five portfolios specifically.
Top 10 combined reach 94.9% of all records.
Momentum
2018 peak, 16 filings
vs. 14 at the 2022 midpoint
Growth has flattened, not accelerated
Filing activity has not exceeded its 2018 peak in the years since, and the leading assignees show no recent-year filings in the momentum data. That is consistent with a field where the foundational claims are largely staked and refiling has slowed.
Most recent year is understated by publication lag.
Technology mix
98.5% vs. 8.8%
C12N share vs. A23L (food applications) share
Core biology is dense; application classes are not
Almost every record touches C12N genetic-engineering classification, but food-application (A23L), biocide (A01N) and materials-shaping (B29C) crossovers each sit under 10% of records. That gap is where feed-optimization claims aimed at food-grade or agricultural production have room to move.
Class shares sum above 100% because records carry multiple IPC codes.
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Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to cell culture media and feed optimization, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Cell Culture Media and Feed Optimization covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Who's Filing
The assignee landscape
Thirty-two assignees make up the full ranked list returned for this search — not a top-50 or top-100 cut, the complete set the data endpoint returns for this query. A handful of names account for nearly all of the volume.
Leader
58 records
held by the top-ranked assignee
One assignee dominates by a wide margin
The leading assignee's 58 records dwarf the fifth-place total of 7, meaning the drop-off from first to fifth place is itself a large share of the field's total volume. Any competitive read of this space starts by mapping that single portfolio's claim scope.
Fifth place holds 7 records; tenth place holds 3.
Co-filing
10 pairs
co-assignee pairs identified
Collaboration is narrow and repeated
The strongest co-assignee links each recur at a count of 3, and the same organisations appear across multiple of the top pairings. That points to a small set of recurring collaborations rather than a broad web of joint filings across the field.
Ten pairs total across 137 records.
Geography
US 46, EPO 31
leading receiving offices
Filing is concentrated in the US and Europe
The United States (46) and the European Patent Office (31) together account for the bulk of receiving-office activity, with Australia (17), WIPO/PCT (15), Denmark (5) and India (5) trailing well behind. A filing strategy built only around US and EU coverage would still miss meaningful activity in Australia.
Six receiving offices carry measurable volume.
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Life Technologies Corporation | 0 | -100% |
| Ventria Bioscience Inc. | 0 | — |
| Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. | 0 | — |
| Merck Patent GmbH | 0 | — |
| Codiak BioSciences Inc. | 0 | — |
| Genentech Inc. | 0 | — |
| INVITRIA INC | 0 | -100% |
| HUANG NING | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Cell Culture Media and Feed Optimization covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Next Steps
Where to take this analysis
The landscape numbers point to specific follow-up work depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, whitespace scoping, or tracking a specific competitor.
Map the leading portfolio's claim boundaries
With one assignee holding 58 of 137 records, understanding exactly what its claims cover — and where they stop — is the highest-value next step before filing into this space.
Explore assignee portfolios in EurekaScope the under-claimed adjacent classes
Food-application, biocide and materials-shaping overlaps all sit under 10% of records despite the dense C12N core, suggesting narrower but less contested claim opportunities.
Run a whitespace search in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Cell Culture Media and Feed Optimization covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions on this landscape
Among the 32 ranked assignees in this dataset, one company holds 58 of the 137 records in scope, far ahead of the fifth-ranked assignee at 7 records. The top five assignees combined account for 80.3% of all 137 records, so the field is best described as concentrated rather than fragmented. Anyone assessing freedom to operate should treat that leading portfolio as the primary reference point before looking at the rest of the ranking.
Not based on the filing trend in this dataset: activity peaked at 16 records in 2018 and sat at 14 by the 2022 midpoint, which reads as flat to declining rather than expanding. Recent-year figures are understated because publication typically lags filing by about 18 months, so the very latest year should not be read as a drop-off in interest. The more reliable signal is that none of the leading assignees show new filings in the most recent tracked year of the momentum data.
C12N, covering microorganisms and genetic engineering, appears in 98.5% of the 137 records in scope, making it effectively the core classification for this field. C07K (peptides and proteins) follows at 39.4%, and C12P (fermentation and enzymatic synthesis) at 17.5%. Beyond that, food applications, biocides, plastics shaping and catalysis-related classes each cover under 10% of records, marking the boundary between the dense core and thinner adjacent territory.
The clearest gaps sit in the classes that overlap only lightly with the dense C12N core: food-grade applications (A23L, 8.8% of records), biocide-compatible additives (A01N, 6.6%), and materials integration such as single-use bioreactor plastics (B29C, 4.4%). These lower shares do not mean the areas are untouched, but they indicate meaningfully less claim density than the core media-composition art, which is worth scoping before assuming any first-filer advantage is gone.
With the top 5 of 32 ranked assignees holding 80.3% of the 137 records, and the top 10 reaching 94.9%, this field sits at the high end of concentration for a bioprocessing sub-area. That leaves a long tail of assignees each holding only a handful of records once past the tenth-ranked position. Practically, this means most of the useful competitive intelligence is concentrated in a small number of portfolios rather than spread evenly across the ranked list.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Cell Culture Media and Feed Optimization covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.