ctDNA Quantification Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
Circulating Tumour DNA Quantification Patents: Who Leads and Where the Field Is Still Open
35.1% concentration. The top 5 assignees hold 1,802 of the 5,131 records in scope — a concentrated core sitting above a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants. Records rose from 295 in 2017 to a peak of 614 in 2021, then eased to 565 by 2024 — an 8% pullback over that span. 2025 and 2026 are still under-counted due to publication lag and should not be read as a fall-off.
- 1GUARDANT HEALTH INC441
- 2SEQUENOM INC404
- 3GRAIL INC403
- 4NATERA INC327
- 5THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG227
See the full circulating tumour dna quantification analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions on ctDNA quantification patents
Who holds the most patents in circulating tumour DNA quantification?
The dataset’s assignee ranking covers 100 companies, with the leader holding 441 records out of 5,131 in scope. The top 5 combined account for 1,802 records (35.1% of all records), and the top 10 combined account for 2,600 records (50.7%). That leaves a long tail of the remaining ranked companies and unranked filers splitting the other half, so the field is concentrated at the top but not monopolised.
Is patent filing in ctDNA quantification still growing?
Filing volume rose from 295 records in 2017 to a peak of 614 in 2021, then eased to 565 by 2024, an 8% decline over that span using the last fully-published years. Publication typically lags filing by about 18 months, so the lower counts showing for 2025 and 2026 are an artefact of that lag rather than evidence of a real slowdown. Read the trend as a plateau after a strong early-2020s expansion, not a field in decline.
What technology areas dominate ctDNA quantification patents?
C12Q (measuring and testing involving enzymes and DNA) appears on 75.1% of the 5,131 records, making wet-lab detection chemistry the largest single category. G16B (bioinformatics) follows at 37.1%, showing that tumour-fraction calling and noise-filtering algorithms are claimed almost as heavily as the underlying assay steps. Smaller but still active categories include G01N material analysis (15.5%), G16H healthcare informatics (12.7%) and C12N genetic engineering (10.4%), reflecting instrumentation, clinical software and molecular biology claims layered around the core detection methods.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Circulating Tumour DNA Quantification covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.