Multiparticulate & Pellet Coating Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- 35.7% of the field sits with five companies. 318 of 891 records in scope belong to the top five assignees — a concentrated core around a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants.
- Filing has cooled from its 2018 peak. Annual filings ran from 38 in 2021 down to 20 in 2024, a 47% drop over that three-year span, before the most recent two years understate activity due to publication lag.
- Nearly all activity clears through medicinal-preparation claims. 857 of 891 records — 96.2% — carry an A61K classification, with therapeutic-activity claims (A61P) present in over a third of records.
Filing growth compares 2021 (38 records) with 2024 (20) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 891 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks 891 published records matched against multiparticulate dosage forms and pellet film coating, filtered against fluid bed coating, coating thickness, curing steps, release lag time, taste masking and sprinkle administration. The scope spans 2015 through the 2026-07-31 data cut-off, capturing both the mechanical side of the technology — how a coating is applied and cured — and the pharmacological side, how that coating is used to control release timing or mask taste.
The dataset reflects a mature, commercially active corner of oral drug delivery rather than an emerging one. Most records classify under medicinal preparations, and the leading assignees include both branded pharmaceutical companies and specialist multiparticulate technology licensors, which is consistent with a field where coating platforms get licensed into multiple products rather than filed once per molecule.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 891 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings rose to a peak of 41 in 2018, then eased through the following years. Between 2021 (38 filings) and 2024 (20 filings) — the last year the dataset treats as complete — annual filings fell 47%. The 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in as publications catch up to filing dates roughly 18 months later, so they should not be read as a continued decline.
IPC composition
Almost every record — 857 of 891, or 96.2% — carries an A61K medicinal-preparations class, confirming this is fundamentally a formulation field. A61P therapeutic-activity classes appear in 35.5% of records, and smaller shares extend into heterocyclic (C07D, 8.5%) and acyclic/carbocyclic (C07C, 6.6%) chemistry, pointing to active-ingredient-specific claims layered on top of the coating platform claims. Because records can carry multiple classes, these shares add up to more than 100% of the 891-record total.
Shares are the percentage of the 891 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Multiparticulate and Pellet Coating Systems with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about multiparticulate and pellet coating systems and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records in this landscape
Timed, pulsatile release systems (US20060246134A1)
A unit multiparticulate dosage form for delivering basic active pharmaceutical ingredients to achieve target pharmacokinetic profiles, built from multicoated beads, pellets or mini-tablets carrying a barrier coating and a lag-time coating. Each timed pulsatile release bead population is engineered for a pre-determined lag time followed by distinct release characteristics, with the barrier coating composition and thickness, lag-time coating composition and thickness, ratio of immediate-release to timed-release bead populations, and total dose all variable design parameters.Filed by Adare Pharmaceuticals — one of the field's most active assignees.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5411745A | Powder-layered morphine sulfate formulations | 383 |
| 2 | US6068859A | Controlled-release dosage forms of Azithromycin | 371 |
| 3 | US6627223B2 | Timed pulsatile drug delivery systems | 354 |
| 4 | US20040126428A1 | Pharmaceutical formulation including a resinate and an aversive agent | 277 |
| 5 | US20070027213A1 | Modified release formulations of a bupropion salt | 193 |
| 6 | US6077533A | Powder-layered oral dosage forms | 181 |
| 7 | WO2015061752A1 | Treatment using bruton's tyrosine kinase inhibitors and immunotherapy | 168 |
| 8 | WO1995030422A1 | Controlled-release dosage forms of azithromycin | 157 |
| 9 | US20150118222A1 | Treatment using bruton's tyrosine kinase inhibitors and immunotherapy | 149 |
| 10 | US7569610B2 | Modified release formulations of a bupropion salt | 147 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations — read them as a signal of influence on the field, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once concentration, timing and classification are read together.
The core is narrow, the tail is long
Five assignees hold 318 of the 891 records in scope, and the top ten extend that to 459 records — 51.5% of the field. Beyond that ranked group, filing activity spreads thinly across a large number of single- or few-filing entrants, typical of a platform technology that gets licensed rather than reinvented.
Activity has eased from its 2018 peak
The field peaked at 41 filings in 2018 and has since declined, with the 2021-to-2024 window showing a 47% drop in annual filings. That reads as a maturing platform rather than a collapsing one — the core coating mechanics are well claimed, and remaining activity concentrates on incremental formulation and active-ingredient combinations.
Claims cluster on formulation, not chemistry
The near-universal presence of A61K classification confirms most claims are about how the dose is built and released rather than novel chemical entities. Heterocyclic and acyclic chemistry classes appear only in a minority of records, suggesting the coating and release-timing mechanics themselves — not the active ingredients riding on them — are where most of the claim density sits.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to multiparticulate and pellet coating systems, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the ground
The leader in this ranking holds 115 records, well ahead of fifth place at 38 and tenth place at 25 — a steep drop-off that marks a genuine leader rather than a crowded plateau.
A clear front-runner
The top-ranked assignee holds 115 records against a fifth-place figure of 38, a gap wide enough to indicate a durable platform position rather than a temporary filing surge.
A competitive second tier
Between fifth and tenth place, record counts run from 38 down to 25 — close enough that mid-field positioning is contestable, particularly for entrants combining licensed platform tech with proprietary formulations.
Filing partnerships are limited but real
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, with the strongest recurring pairing linked to individual named inventors as well as a corporate co-filer, suggesting some records originate from licensing or acquisition-linked filing structures rather than purely internal R&D.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Biovail Laboratories International SRL | 0 | — |
| Adare Pharmaceuticals, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Pfizer Inc. | 0 | — |
| Valeant International (Bermuda) | 0 | — |
| Cindome Pharma, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Cephalon, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Pfizer Products Inc. | 0 | — |
| Novartis AG | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, licensing, or new filing.
Map claim boundaries around the leader's portfolio
With 115 records concentrated in one assignee, a freedom-to-operate review should start there before assessing the rest of the ranked field.
Explore assignee claims in EurekaTest white-space claims in under-filed branches
Curing-step process controls and taste-masking chemistries show thinner density than the core coating claims — a reasonable place to probe for open claim language.
Run a white space search in EurekaTrack the most-cited prior art before drafting
The highest-citation records anchor much of the surrounding claim language; reviewing them first avoids overlapping an already well-established position.
Review cited records in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
The ranking in this dataset covers 100 companies, with a single leader holding 115 of the 891 records in scope — well ahead of the fifth-ranked assignee at 38 records. The leading names include specialist multiparticulate technology developers alongside branded pharmaceutical companies, reflecting a field where coating platforms are frequently licensed into multiple downstream products. Beyond the top ten, which together hold 51.5% of all records, filing activity spreads across a long tail of companies with only a handful of filings each.
Filing peaked at 41 records in 2018 and has since declined, with the 2021-to-2024 window showing a 47% drop in annual filings from 38 down to 20. That said, 2025 and 2026 figures in any such dataset are understated because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so recent years should not be read as confirmation of a continuing slowdown. The overall pattern looks like a maturing technology rather than a shrinking one — core coating mechanics are well established and claimed.
In the representative filing structure seen in this landscape, a barrier coating typically protects the drug core during processing or provides an initial isolation layer, while a lag-time coating is engineered specifically to delay release for a pre-determined period before drug release begins. Composition and thickness of each coating are treated as independently variable design parameters, allowing different bead populations within the same dosage form to be tuned for different release timings. This two-coating architecture underlies many of the timed, pulsatile release systems that appear among the most-cited records in this field.
A61K, covering medicinal preparations, appears in 96.2% of the 891 records in this landscape and should be the starting point for any search in this space. A61P, covering therapeutic activity of compounds, co-occurs in 35.5% of records and helps narrow results by indication. Smaller but relevant classes include C07D and C07C for records where active-ingredient chemistry is separately claimed alongside the coating and release mechanics, though these appear in a minority of records.
Relative to the dense core claims around coating composition and release-lag timing, thinner filing density appears in areas such as curing-step process controls, sprinkle-administration stability data, and specific taste-masking coating chemistries. These branches are adjacent to the well-claimed core rather than entirely separate from it, so a workable new claim typically needs to combine a process or stability angle with the established platform mechanics rather than avoid them altogether. Reviewing the most-cited prior art before drafting is the practical first step to confirm a proposed claim does not overlap the entrenched positions.
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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.