Covalent Inhibitor Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- Filings peaked in 2024 at 19 records then the trend flattens toward 2026 — momentum has cooled rather than accelerated, and the most recent year is still undercounted due to publication lag.
- The top 5 assignees hold 65.0% of all 40 records concentration extends further to 82.5% across the top 10, leaving a thin long tail among the 20 ranked companies.
- China is the dominant receiving office with 14 filings well ahead of WIPO's PCT route (9) and the United States (5), signalling where enforcement and freedom-to-operate risk cluster first.
What the covalent inhibitor patent record shows
Covalent inhibitors form bonds with a target residue — most often a reactive cysteine — rather than binding reversibly, which is what gives them extended residence time and distinct selectivity profiles. The claim space tracked here spans warhead chemistry, off-target reactivity mitigation, and specific programs such as KRAS G12C and G12D targeting. Across the 40 records in scope, the field reads as an active but still small and China-heavy filing pool rather than a mature, globally distributed one.
Filing activity rose from zero in 2017 to a peak of 19 records in 2024, with the 2022 midpoint at only 4 — a trajectory that front-loads recent years and understates how fast the field actually moved before the current filing gap. Technology composition is dominated by therapeutic-activity and medicinal-preparation classes, with heterocyclic and peptide/protein chemistry as the two largest secondary clusters.
Filing trend and technology mix
Two views of the same 40-record dataset: how filings moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim volume.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings climbed from zero in 2017 to a peak of 19 in 2024, with the 2022 midpoint at just 4 records. The line flattens into 2026, and because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the final year shown is understated rather than a genuine drop-off.
IPC subclass composition
A61P (therapeutic activity) and A61K (medicinal preparations) cover effectively the entire dataset at 100.0% and 97.5% of the 40 records respectively, confirming this is a therapeutics-first filing pool. C07D heterocyclic chemistry (47.5%) and C07K peptides/proteins (37.5%) are the two substantive secondary clusters; C12N, C07C, G01N and C07F each sit under 11%, marking thinner, more exploratory claim territory.
Shares are the percentage of the 40 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Covalent Inhibitors and Targeted Covalent Drugs with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about covalent inhibitors and targeted covalent drugs and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative covalent inhibitor patent
Crystalline forms of a covalent inhibitor of the Menin-MLL interaction
The filing covers a specific compound — including its crystalline forms, solvates, and pharmaceutically acceptable salts — together with pharmaceutical compositions and methods of using it, alone or combined with other agents, to treat cancers including lymphoma, autoimmune and heteroimmune conditions, diabetes, and inflammatory disease.US20240300950A1, published 2024
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CN117186095A | 靶向KRAS蛋白G12D突变体的共价抑制剂 | 20 |
| 2 | WO2023236778A1 | 一种三功能化合物及其用途 | 12 |
| 3 | CN119343151A | 一种三功能化合物及其用途 | 3 |
| 4 | CN115160294A | 一种G9a/GLP共价抑制剂及其制备方法及应用 | 2 |
| 5 | WO2024240251A1 | 一种新的三功能化合物及其用途 | 1 |
| 6 | WO2024155710A1 | Crystalline forms of n-[4-[4-(4-morpholinyl)-7h-pyrrolo[2,3-d]pyrimidin-6- YL]phenyl]-4-[[3(r)-[(l-OXO-2-prop… | 1 |
Citation counts favour older records in any searched corpus — read them as a signal of influence within this set, not as a ranking of current technical importance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (6 of 6 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the data means for filing strategy
Three read-throughs from the filing trend, the technology mix and the geographic split.
Growth has plateaued, not accelerated
The trend rose from zero in 2017 to a peak of 19 records in 2024, but the 2022 midpoint of only 4 records shows most of that growth is recent and compressed. With the most recent year always undercounted by publication lag, treat any apparent 2025-2026 slowdown with caution rather than as a confirmed retreat.
Heterocyclic chemistry is the busiest secondary claim zone
Beyond the near-universal A61P/A61K therapeutic classification, C07D heterocyclic compounds appear in 47.5% of the 40 records and C07K peptides/proteins in 37.5% — the two zones where warhead and scaffold claims most often collide.
China leads the receiving-office count by a wide margin
China's 14 filings outpace the WIPO PCT route (9), the United States (5) and Europe (4), meaning most freedom-to-operate exposure in this space currently sits with Chinese-filed priority rather than US or EPO prosecution.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to covalent inhibitors and targeted covalent drugs, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked list covers 20 companies drawn from all 40 records — a small, concentrated field rather than a broad industry.
One filer sets the pace
The leading assignee holds 10 of the 40 records in scope, well ahead of fifth place at 2 and tenth place at just 1 — a steep drop-off that marks this as a leader-plus-tail structure rather than a broad multi-player race.
More than half the field sits with five assignees
The top 5 assignees combine for 26 of the 40 records in scope — 65.0% of the total. That concentration extends to 82.5% across the top 10, leaving little room for a new entrant to build a comparable position without engaging directly with incumbent claims.
Collaboration is narrow and organisation-linked
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, and the strongest repeated pairings all link back to a single organisation and its named inventors — evidence of internal co-filing patterns rather than cross-company joint development.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| New York University | 0 | -100% |
| Biomea Fusion, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Peking University | 0 | — |
| Beijing Changping Laboratory | 0 | — |
| Southern University of Science and Technology | 0 | — |
| Sun Yat-sen University | 0 | — |
| ZHOU YANJING | 0 | — |
| ZHENG BO | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific follow-up questions for teams deciding where to file or partner next.
Map claim boundaries around the leader's portfolio
With one assignee holding 10 of 40 records, a freedom-to-operate review should start with that portfolio's specific claim language before assuming open space elsewhere.
Explore in EurekaWatch the China filing channel closely
China's 14 receiving-office filings outpace every other jurisdiction, so competitive monitoring built only on US or EPO sources will miss the majority of new activity.
Explore in EurekaTest the under-claimed sub-areas for a first filing
Thin coverage in areas like trifunctional degrader-covalent hybrids and non-cysteine reactivity assays suggests room for a differentiated first claim rather than a crowded me-too filing.
Explore in EurekaCommon questions about covalent inhibitor patents
This dataset identifies 40 published records in scope, covering filings from 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off. That count reflects a specific search string combining covalent inhibitor terminology with selectivity and residence-time concepts under IPC classes A61K31, C07D403 and A61P35, so a broader or narrower search string would return a different total. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the true number of filed-but-unpublished applications from the most recent year is higher than shown.
The field is concentrated: the top 5 assignees together hold 65.0% of all 40 records, and the top 10 extend that to 82.5%. The single leading assignee accounts for 10 records versus just 2 at fifth place and 1 at tenth, meaning most of the ranked field files only occasionally. This leader-plus-tail structure is typical of a young, technically specialised patent space rather than a broad industrial one.
US20240300950A1, filed by Biomea Fusion, covers a specific covalent inhibitor compound targeting the Menin-MLL interaction, including its crystalline forms, solvates and pharmaceutically acceptable salts, plus pharmaceutical compositions and methods of use. Its therapeutic scope in the filing spans cancers including lymphoma, along with autoimmune, heteroimmune, diabetic and inflammatory conditions. Anyone working with a structurally similar acrylamide-based covalent warhead on a comparable pyrrolopyrimidine scaffold should review this filing's specific crystalline-form claims before proceeding.
Relative to the near-universal A61P and A61K coverage, several IPC subclasses in this dataset sit well below 15% of records — C12N (10.0%), C07C (5.0%), G01N (5.0%) and C07F (2.5%). That thin coverage points to specific white space in areas such as organo-metallic covalent linker chemistry and material-analysis methods paired with covalent warheads. Thin filing density signals open claim space, not necessarily lower commercial relevance.
China leads as a receiving office with 14 filings, ahead of the WIPO PCT route at 9, the United States at 5, Europe at 4, Australia at 3 and India at 2. This distribution means competitive intelligence and freedom-to-operate work focused only on US or EPO filings would miss the majority of documented activity in this field. Teams evaluating enforcement risk should treat China-filed priority as the primary jurisdiction to monitor.
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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.