GLP-1 Incretin Peptide Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- Filing peaked in 2021 at 34 records and has since flattened, with the 2022 midpoint at 19 — this is a field consolidating claims rather than expanding them.
- Five companies hold 54.7% of all 170 records in scope and the top ten hold 82.9%, so most of the claim space sits with a small group rather than a long tail of independent filers.
- C07K peptide-structure claims cover only 47.6% of records against 94.7% for A61K formulation claims — most of the crowding is in how the drug is dosed and administered, not in the peptide sequence itself.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent families filed against GLP-1 receptor agonists, dual GIP/glucagon co-agonists, and related incretin peptide therapeutics, filtered to documents that address half-life extension, dose-escalation tolerability, oral formulation, manufacturing scale, or GIP/glucagon co-agonism specifically. The search spans classification codes for medicinal preparations, peptide and protein structures, and therapeutic activity against metabolic disease, which is why formulation and delivery claims dominate the class composition even though the underlying molecules are peptides.
Coverage runs from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 data cut-off. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent one or two years in any trend line will understate actual filing activity — treat the tail of the chart as provisional, not as a real decline in interest.
Filing trend and technology composition
170 records sit in scope, spread across 32 ranked assignees and eight IPC subclasses. The trend line and the class breakdown below are drawn from the same denominator so they can be read side by side.
A peak in 2021, then a plateau
Filings rose from 2 in 2017 to a peak of 34 in 2021, then settled near the 2022 midpoint of 19 — a pattern consistent with a field that filled its core claim space early in the last decade and has since moved to defensive or incremental filings rather than new platform bets.
Formulation claims dominate; sequence claims are a minority
A61K medicinal-preparation claims appear on 94.7% of records and A61P therapeutic-activity claims on 74.1%, while C07K peptide-and-protein-structure claims appear on only 47.6%. Heterocyclic small-molecule claims (C07D) and genetic-engineering claims (C12N) are minor by comparison, at 8.8% and 5.9% respectively. Since a record can carry several classes, these figures are read against the 170-record total, not against each other.
Shares are the percentage of the 170 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on GLP-1 and Incretin Peptide Therapeutics with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about glp-1 and incretin peptide therapeutics and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe families other patents build on
US9200083B2 — Methods of treating diabetes using therapeutic agents comprising a GLP-1 receptor agonist and elastin-like peptides
The present invention provides therapeutic agents and compositions comprising elastin-like peptides (ELPs) and therapeutic proteins. In some embodiments, the therapeutic protein is a GLP-1 receptor agonist, insulin, or Factor VII/VIIa, including functional analogs. The present invention further provides encoding polynucleotides, as well as methods of making and using the therapeutic agents. The therapeutic agents have improvements in relation to their use as therapeutics, including, inter alia, one or more of half-life, clearance and/or persistance in the body, solubility, and bioavailability.Filed by Duke University, published 2015-12-01. Sits in the same ELP-fusion family as the most-cited records in this landscape.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO2006059106A2 | Bispecific domain antibodies targeting serum albumin and GLP-1 or pyy | 153 |
| 2 | US20100022455A1 | Therapeutic agents comprising elastin-like peptides | 104 |
| 3 | US20120208755A1 | Compositions, Devices and Methods of Use Thereof for the Treatment of Cancers | 95 |
| 4 | US8178495B2 | Therapeutic agents comprising a GLP-1 receptor agonist and elastin-like peptide | 90 |
| 5 | US20110123487A1 | Therapeutic agents comprising elastic peptides | 54 |
| 6 | US8729018B2 | Therapeutic agents comprising elastic peptides | 44 |
| 7 | US20140213516A1 | Therapeutic agents comprising elastic peptides | 43 |
| 8 | US20150057227A1 | Compositions, devices and methods of use thereof for the treatment of cancers | 38 |
| 9 | US9127047B2 | Therapeutic agents comprising insulin and elastin-like peptides | 28 |
| 10 | US20160120952A1 | Therapeutic agents comprising elastin-like peptides | 25 |
Citation counts favour older records that have had more time to accumulate citations inside this corpus — read them as a signal of influence on the field's early direction, not as a ranking of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once the ranking, the trend line, and the class composition are read together.
The core claim space is already held by a small group
Five assignees hold 93 of the 170 records in scope, and the top ten hold 141, or 82.9%. A new entrant is not filing into open ground on the core GLP-1 agonist and ELP-fusion mechanisms — it is filing around positions that a small number of companies and one academic institution already occupy.
Growth has flattened, not accelerated
Filing rose steadily from 2017 through 2021 and then plateaued. Recent-year momentum figures for the leading assignees show several at zero filings in the latest year, including year-over-year drops of -100% for at least two of the top filers — consistent with a maturing claim landscape rather than a growing one.
Formulation, not sequence, is where the crowding is
Less than half of records carry a C07K peptide-structure claim, while nearly all carry an A61K formulation claim. This means the contested ground is dosing regimen, half-life extension chemistry, and delivery format — areas where a novel peptide backbone can still clear prior art even if the underlying receptor-agonist mechanism is well covered.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to glp-1 and incretin peptide therapeutics, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked assignees split into an academic-and-biotech cluster with foundational ELP-fusion and half-life-extension patents, and a smaller group of large-molecule and generic-peptide manufacturers filing more recently. Co-assignee activity is limited to seven pairs, mostly reflecting corporate affiliate structures rather than cross-company collaboration.
One academic assignee anchors the earliest core patents
The leading assignee's filings, including the most-cited elastin-like-peptide fusion patents, define much of the mechanistic language the rest of the field files around. Its recent-year momentum shows zero new filings in the latest year, suggesting the core position is now largely staked out rather than still expanding.
A drop-off after the top five, then a longer tail
Filing counts fall from 14 at fifth place to 7 at tenth, and the ranking runs to 32 companies total. This shape — a concentrated top five, a mid-tier of single-digit filers, and a longer tail below — is typical of a field where the foundational mechanism patents are settled but formulation and manufacturing variants are still being contested.
Co-filing is rare and mostly intra-corporate
The strongest co-assignee pair links two entities under a shared corporate parent, and the next-strongest pairs link inventors to their academic or biotech home institution. There is little evidence here of joint-venture or cross-licensing filing activity between otherwise unrelated companies.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Amgen Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Duke University | 0 | — |
| The Scripps Research Institute | 0 | -100% |
| CymaBay Therapeutics Inc. | 0 | — |
| Domantis Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Intarcia Therapeutics Inc. | 0 | — |
| SPITFIRE PHARMA LLC | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The ranking and trend data point to specific next steps depending on whether the question is freedom-to-operate, licensing, or R&D direction.
Check freedom-to-operate against the top five
With 54.7% of all 170 records held by five assignees, any new filing on core GLP-1 agonist or ELP-fusion mechanisms should be checked against their specific claim sets before development spend, not after.
Run a freedom-to-operate search in EurekaWatch the formulation and delivery classes
A61K and A61M claims are less concentrated than the core mechanism claims and are where recent filing activity is likelier to sit given the 18-month publication lag.
Track formulation filings in EurekaModel around the ELP-fusion citation cluster
The most-cited records in this dataset share elastin-like-peptide fusion architecture; a design-around strategy should start by mapping exactly which claim elements in that cluster are independent versus dependent.
Map the citation cluster in EurekaCommon questions on GLP-1 and incretin peptide patents
In this dataset of 170 records, one academic assignee leads with 25 records, and the top five assignees together hold 93 records, or 54.7% of everything in scope. The ranking runs to 32 companies total, with a clear drop from fifth place (14 records) to tenth place (7 records), so the field is concentrated at the top rather than evenly spread. Leadership by record count does not necessarily mean leadership in commercial GLP-1 drugs on the market, since this scope is filtered to specific technical routes like half-life extension and oral formulation.
Filing activity peaked at 34 records in 2021 and had fallen back to 19 by the 2022 midpoint, and several of the leading assignees show zero filings in the most recent year with year-over-year drops of -100%. That said, publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent one or two years in any patent trend understate real activity. The honest read is that the core mechanism claims look settled, while newer formulation and manufacturing filings may still be working through the publication pipeline.
Medicinal preparation claims under A61K appear on 94.7% of the 170 records in scope, and therapeutic-activity claims under A61P appear on 74.1%, making dosing, formulation and administration the most contested ground. Peptide and protein structure claims under C07K appear on only 47.6% of records, meaning the underlying peptide backbone is less universally claimed than how it is dosed and delivered. This gap is where a genuinely novel peptide sequence can still find room even inside a crowded formulation landscape.
US9200083B2, assigned to Duke University and published in December 2015, claims methods of treating diabetes using therapeutic agents that combine a GLP-1 receptor agonist with elastin-like peptides (ELPs), along with the encoding polynucleotides and methods of making and using them. It sits in the same citation cluster as several of the most-cited records in this landscape, all built around ELP fusion for half-life extension. Anyone building a GLP-1 therapeutic that uses ELP-based half-life extension needs to read this family's claims closely before assuming the design is clear.
The thinnest classes in this dataset are C07H sugar-and-nucleic-acid conjugation (1.8% of records), C07C acyclic and carbocyclic backbone chemistry (0.6%), and C12N genetic-engineering approaches (5.9%), all well below the 94.7% coverage of core A61K formulation claims. Oral bioavailability enhancement and GIP/glucagon tri-agonist dosing regimens also show thinner coverage relative to the dominant mechanism claims. These branches are under-claimed relative to the core mechanism space, but thin coverage in a filtered dataset is a starting hypothesis for a freedom-to-operate check, not a guarantee of open ground.
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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.