Natural Product Macrocycle Patents: Who Leads, Trends 2026
Natural Product Derived Macrocycle Patents: Filing Trends and Leading Assignees
71.3% concentration. The top 5 of 83 ranked assignees hold 196 of all 275 records in scope — a field dominated by a small group rather than spread evenly. Filings rose from 7 in 2017 to a peak of 56 in 2019, before settling into a lower but rebuilding pattern — 6 in 2021 climbing to 23 in 2024, a +283% increase over that span. The 2025-2026 figures are not yet complete given publication lag and should not be read as a decline.
- 1EISAI R&D MANAGEMENT CO LTD111
- 2E THERAPEUTICS LTD36
- 3NODALITY INC27
- 4ST JUDE CHILDRENS RES HOSPITAL INC12
- 5SANOFI AVENTIS S P A10
See the full natural product derived macrocycles 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 about this landscape
Who holds the most patents on natural product derived macrocycles?
One assignee leads with 111 of the 275 records in this dataset, far ahead of the fifth-ranked assignee at 10. That gap means the field is not evenly contested — a small number of organisations, led by one in particular, account for the large majority of claim coverage. Anyone doing freedom-to-operate work in this space should start by mapping that leader’s specific claims rather than assuming a broad competitive field.
Is filing activity in natural product macrocycle patents increasing or slowing down?
Filings grew from 6 records in 2021 to 23 in 2024, a +283% increase over that span, after an earlier peak of 56 records in 2019. The apparent dip in 2025 and 2026 is not a real slowdown — publication typically lags filing by about 18 months, so the most recent one to two years of any patent dataset are always undercounted. The 2021-2024 trend is the more reliable signal of current momentum.
What technology areas do these macrocycle patents actually claim?
The largest IPC classes are A61P (therapeutic activity, 53.1% of the 275 records), A61K (medicinal preparations, 49.5%) and C07D (heterocyclic compounds, 47.3%), meaning most filings claim either a therapeutic use or the underlying scaffold chemistry, often both. Smaller classes like C12N (microorganisms and genetic engineering, 17.1%) and G01N (material analysis and testing, 12.7%) point to production and characterization work sitting alongside the core chemistry. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC codes, these percentages overlap rather than sum to 100%.
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 Natural Product Derived Macrocycles 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.