Cell Therapy Manufacturing Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Filing has plateaued, not grown. the trend peaks at 5 families in 2022 and has not exceeded that since — this is a field holding position, not accelerating.
- No single assignee owns the space. 12 families spread across a mix of individual inventors, a specialty biotech and a large equipment maker, with recent-year activity mostly at zero.
- Claims cluster on apparatus, not biology. C12N and C12M dominate the IPC mix, while separation, centrifugation and fluid-handling classes each carry only 2 records apiece.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent families at the intersection of cell therapy manufacturing and the hardware and assays that make it repeatable: closed-system processing, vector transduction, potency assays, cryopreservation and scale-out. The search restricts to titles and title/claim/description fields naming these terms together with IPC classes covering microorganism and genetic-engineering methods (C12N5), medicinal preparations from cells (A61K35), and bioreactor apparatus (C12M1). The result is a small, tightly scoped corpus rather than the whole of cell-therapy patenting broadly.
With only 12 published families across an eleven-year window, this is a niche pocket of the broader cell-and-gene-therapy patent estate — useful precisely because it is small enough to read every record rather than infer from a sample. Publication lags filing by roughly eighteen months, so 2026 and late 2025 activity is understated in every chart on this page.
Filing trend and technology composition
Twelve families, a flat-to-declining trend, and a technology mix weighted heavily toward genetic-engineering and bioreactor apparatus classes rather than downstream separation or fluid handling.
A peak in 2022, no rebound since
Filings rose from 2 in 2017 to a high of 5 in 2022, then fell back. With 2022 sitting at the midpoint of the observed range, the shape reads as flat-to-declining rather than a technology still gaining filers — treat the 2026 figure of 1 as an undercount given publication lag rather than as evidence of a further drop.
Apparatus classes outweigh separation and analysis
C12N (microorganisms and genetic engineering) appears in 9 of 12 records and C12M (bioreactors and enzyme apparatus) in 5, confirming this corpus is anchored in cell-processing method and apparatus claims. Separation, centrifugation, magnetic/electrostatic sorting and fluid-device classes each show only 2 records — real filing activity exists there, but it is thin enough that a well-drafted claim could still stake out room.
Shares are the percentage of the 12 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Cell Therapy Manufacturing with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about cell therapy manufacturing and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this corpus
US20220127558A1 — Automated closed system for cell therapy manufacturing
Embodiments of automated closed apparatus for cell therapy manufacturing are provided herein. In some embodiments, an automated closed apparatus for cell therapy manufacturing includes: a master device having a master controller for processing control programs for a variety of cell types; an input device fluidly coupled to the master device, wherein the input device is configured to feed an initial plurality of cells to the master device; one or more auxiliary devices each configured to perform one or more cell therapy manufacturing steps to the initial plurality of cells to form a final plurality of cells; and an output device coupled to the master device configured to collect the final plurality of cells.Filed by Applied Materials, Inc., published 2022-04-28. This is the most-cited record in the corpus alongside WO2017121794A1.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20220127558A1 | Automated closed system for cell therapy manufacturing | 7 |
| 2 | WO2017121794A1 | Banking of stem cells and business methods related to the same | 7 |
| 3 | US20230027004A1 | Closed-system and method for autologous and allogeneic cell therapy manufacturing | 3 |
| 4 | US20230176062A1 | Devices and disposables for patient-specific cell therapy manufacturing | 1 |
Citation counts are drawn from within this searched corpus only; they favour older filings and should be read as a signal of influence, not current importance.
Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (4 of 4 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Read together, the trend, the IPC spread and the citation table point to a field where the equipment layer is claimed more thoroughly than the biology or logistics layers around it.
Growth has stalled, not accelerated
The trend peaks mid-window in 2022 and does not recover. For a technology this operationally central to commercial cell therapy, a flat filing curve suggests either consolidation around a few established architectures or that newer innovation is being filed under adjacent search terms this corpus does not capture.
Two filings anchor the influence map
US20220127558A1 and WO2017121794A1 each carry 7 citations, well ahead of the rest of the table. Both address foundational infrastructure — automated closed processing and stem-cell banking business methods — rather than a specific cell type or indication, which is consistent with a field still building shared plumbing.
Genetic-engineering claims dominate the apparatus layer
C12N and C12M together cover the bulk of this corpus, while separation, centrifugation and fluid-handling classes sit at 2 records each. Claim density is occupied at the core process level; the surrounding hardware classes are not saturated.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to cell therapy manufacturing, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| PLUCHINO STEFANO | OCCHIPINTI LUIGI GIUSEPPE | 2 |
| PLUCHINO STEFANO | CAMBRIDGE INNOVATION TECH CONSULTING LTD | 2 |
| OCCHIPINTI LUIGI GIUSEPPE | CAMBRIDGE INNOVATION TECH CONSULTING LTD | 2 |
Only 3 co-assignee pairs appear in the corpus, all centered on the same three names — Pluchino Stefano, Occhipinti Luigi Giuseppe and Cambridge Innovation Technology Consulting Ltd — indicating this is a field of largely independent filers rather than joint-venture patenting.
Who is filing, and who has gone quiet
The assignee list mixes individual inventors, a specialty cell-therapy company and a large equipment supplier — but recent-year momentum has dropped to zero for nearly all of them.
The large-equipment entrant filed once and it stuck
Applied Materials holds the most-cited closed-system record in the corpus, US20220127558A1, but shows 0 filings in the latest year tracked. A single well-cited apparatus filing from an equipment major can anchor a category without ongoing volume.
Cell-therapy specialists show no recent activity in this slice
Kite Pharma and Miltenyi Biotec BV & Co KG both appear in the assignee list but register 0 filings in the most recent year — consistent with either a pause in this specific claim territory or activity that has moved to adjacent search terms.
The only active filer in the latest tracked year is an individual
Dr Latha Kiran Krishna Rajendran is the sole name in this dataset with a filing in the latest year, underscoring how thin current-year activity is across the whole corpus.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| DR LATHA KIRAN KRISHNA RAJENDRAN | 1 | — |
| Kite Pharma | 0 | — |
| Applied Materials, Inc. | 0 | — |
| PLUCHINO STEFANO | 0 | — |
| OCCHIPINTI LUIGI GIUSEPPE | 0 | — |
| MILTENYI BIOTEC BV & CO KG | 0 | — |
| CAMBRIDGE INNOVATION TECH CONSULTING LTD | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
This landscape is a starting map, not a filing decision. The next steps depend on whether you are scoping freedom-to-operate or looking for where to file.
Check freedom-to-operate against the top-cited filings
US20220127558A1 and WO2017121794A1 carry the most citations in this corpus and cover closed-system automation and stem-cell banking respectively — any new closed-system design should be checked against both before development proceeds.
Run a claim comparison in EurekaWatch the equipment-layer gap
With Applied Materials showing zero recent filings and separation/centrifugation classes thin across the board, a fresh apparatus claim in wash-step centrifugation or fluid-path disposables faces less occupied prior art than the core C12N space.
Explore white space in EurekaCommon questions about cell therapy manufacturing patents
This dataset, scoped to closed-system, vector-transduction, potency-assay, cryopreservation and scale-out terms combined with cell-therapy manufacturing IPC classes, contains 12 published patent families between 2015 and 2026. That is a narrow slice of the broader cell-and-gene-therapy patent estate, not a count of every cell-therapy patent in existence. Broader searches using different terminology or classification codes will return a larger and differently shaped set.
The corpus shows no single dominant assignee; instead it mixes individual inventors, a specialty cell-therapy company and a large equipment supplier, Applied Materials, whose closed-system filing is one of the two most-cited records in the set. Most named assignees, including the specialty biotech players, show zero filings in the most recent tracked year, which suggests the current landscape is unsettled rather than consolidated. Anyone assessing competitive position here should treat citation count, not filing volume, as the more informative signal given how small the dataset is.
No — filings rose from 2 in 2017 to a peak of 5 in 2022 and have not exceeded that level since, with the most recent full year showing only 1. Because publication lags filing by around eighteen months, the last one to two years understate true activity, but even accounting for that lag the trend reads as flat-to-declining rather than accelerating. This makes cell therapy manufacturing a case of occupied claim space rather than a fast-moving frontier, at least within the terms this search covers.
US20220127558A1, assigned to Applied Materials and published April 2022, claims an automated closed apparatus for cell therapy manufacturing built around a master device with a master controller, an input device, one or more auxiliary processing devices, and an output device. It is the joint most-cited record in this corpus, tied with WO2017121794A1 on stem-cell banking. Its breadth — covering a general architecture rather than a single cell type — is why it functions as a reference point for anyone designing new closed-system hardware in this space.
The IPC breakdown shows separation processes, magnetic/electrostatic sorting, centrifugation and body-fluid device classes each carrying only 2 records, compared with 9 for core genetic-engineering methods and 5 for bioreactor apparatus. That gap suggests the downstream hardware layer — wash-step centrifugation, patient-specific disposable fluid paths, automated potency-assay integration — is less thoroughly claimed than the core processing methods. A specific, well-drafted claim in one of those thinner branches has more room to stand than a general closed-system apparatus claim would today.
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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.