Pharmaceutical Cold Chain Patents: Top Filers & Filing Trends 2026
- 35.7% concentration. The five leading assignees hold 478 of the 1,340 records in scope — a genuinely concentrated field rather than a fragmented one.
- Filings down 64% since the 2021 peak year. 2021 recorded 70 filings; 2024, the most recent complete year, recorded 25 — a real pullback, not a publication-lag artefact.
- A61K dominates, A61M barely registers. Medicinal preparations claims sit on 76.3% of records, while body-fluid delivery devices appear on just 2.7% — a wide gap worth checking before drafting.
Filing growth compares 2021 (70 records) with 2024 (25) — 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 1,340 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks 1,340 published records filed against pharmaceutical cold chain and stability language paired with formulation and processing terms — particle size, release kinetics, fill volume, stability indicators, sterile processing and drug formulation. It spans filings from 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off, though the most recent one to two years are understated because publication typically lags filing by around eighteen months.
The scope sits at the intersection of drug product stability and the manufacturing controls that protect it: formulation chemistry, sterile fill operations and the analytical methods used to demonstrate shelf life. It is a good proxy for where companies are staking claims on how a drug is kept viable, not just what the drug is.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,340 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
A sharp pullback from the 2019–2021 peak
Filings ran from 47 in 2017 to a peak of 104 in 2019, then eased to 70 by 2021. Over the following three complete years, volume fell 64%, from 70 in 2021 to 25 in 2024 — the steepest sustained drop in the series. 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in under the usual publication lag and should not be read as a continuation of the trend yet.
Medicinal preparations claims dominate the mix
A61K (medicinal preparations) appears on 76.3% of records, far ahead of A61P (therapeutic activity, 30.4%) and C07D (heterocyclic compounds, 25.2%). Device-side classes are comparatively thin: A61M, covering devices for body fluids, sits at just 2.7% of records, and A01P (pesticide activity) at 3.6% — both narrow bands relative to the formulation-heavy core.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,340 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Pharmaceutical Cold Chain & Stability Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about pharmaceutical cold chain & stability patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
Indications For Local Transport of Anaesthetic Agents By Electrotransport Devices
The use of an iontophoresis electrode assembly for delivery of a drug formulation is described. The drug formulation includes an anaesthetic and a vasoconstrictor. It is administered to a patient prior to a procedure to produce clinically acceptable depth and duration of dermal anaesthesia at the portion of skin to subject to a painful procedure or to reduce or eliminate pain. The procedure is one selected from the group consisting of venipuncture, IV cannulation, needle aspirations, body piercings, blood donations, electrolysis, tattoo removal, tattoo application, injections, dermabrasion, skin peeling, high velocity particle ablation, pace maker implantation, pace maker replacement, epidural anaesthesia and other listed procedures.US20070078434A1 — filed by Vyteris, Inc.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO2009024541A2 | Isoxazoline compositions and their use as antiparasitics | 404 |
| 2 | US5874481A | Fluorochemical solutions for the delivery of lipophilic pharmaceutical agents | 273 |
| 3 | WO2007076034A2 | Anti-viral compounds | 220 |
| 4 | US20110059988A1 | Isoxazoline compositions and their use as antiparasitics | 154 |
| 5 | WO2014068527A1 | Bruton's tyrosine kinase inhibitors | 132 |
| 6 | US4252827A | Oxygen-transferable fluorocarbon emulsion | 132 |
| 7 | WO1999065464A1 | Pharmaceutical formulations for aerosols with two or more active substances | 109 |
| 8 | WO2012161812A1 | Tricyclic inhibitors of kinases | 93 |
| 9 | US20080064743A1 | Dry powder compound formulations and uses thereof | 92 |
| 10 | WO2008030567A2 | Dry powder compound formulations and uses thereof | 85 |
Citation counts favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations within this searched corpus — treat them as a signal of influence, not of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three read-outs from the concentration, trend and classification data that matter more than the raw counts.
The top of the field is genuinely crowded
478 of the 1,340 records in scope belong to just five assignees. That is a dense prior-art position around core formulation and stability claims — a new filer entering that exact space is competing against an established block, not a fragmented field.
Volume has genuinely pulled back
This is not a publication-lag illusion: 2021 to 2024 are both complete years in the record, and the drop is real. Peak activity was 2019 at 104 filings, so the field has come off its high substantially over five years.
Formulation claims dominate the mix
Medicinal preparations (A61K) sits on more than three-quarters of records, dwarfing device-oriented classes like A61M at 2.7%. Anyone drafting around delivery hardware rather than formulation chemistry is working in a much thinner part of the map.
Filing activity is US- and Europe-led
The United States leads receiving offices at 253, ahead of EPO at 170 and WIPO/PCT at 155. Australia, Canada and India each sit near 85 — a secondary tier worth checking for regional freedom-to-operate before assuming US or EU coverage settles the question.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to pharmaceutical cold chain & stability patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the ground, and where it thins out
The ranking covers 100 companies counted by records — not a top-50 or top-100 cut, but the full set the data endpoint returns. A handful of names hold the majority of the position; most of the rest appear once or twice.
One assignee well ahead of the field
The leading assignee holds 151 records, well clear of the fifth-place holder at 52 and the tenth-place holder at 36. That gap between first and fifth is itself informative: this is not a close multi-way race at the top.
Even leaders have gone quiet recently
Recent-year momentum among the largest historical filers is muted: several of the top assignees show zero filings in the latest tracked year, and the most active shows only one. That is consistent with the broader 2021–2024 pullback rather than a single company's retreat.
Co-filing is limited but not absent
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the data, with the strongest pairing recorded at 12 shared filings. Co-filing here looks like the exception rather than the norm — most records in this space carry a single assignee.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Intervet International B.V. | 1 | 0% |
| Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. | 1 | — |
| Pfizer Inc. | 0 | — |
| Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. | 0 | — |
| Abbott Laboratories | 0 | — |
| AbbVie Inc. | 0 | — |
| Wyeth LLC | 0 | — |
| Ambrx, Inc. | 0 | — |
Where to take this from here
The landscape points to specific next questions rather than a single conclusion.
Check freedom-to-operate against the top 10
With 51.4% of all 1,340 records held by ten assignees, any new formulation or fill-process filing should be checked against that block before drafting claims.
Explore assignee positions in EurekaProbe the device-side white space
A61M-classed records sit at only 2.7% of the corpus. If a delivery-device angle is part of the technical approach, this branch merits a closer look for open claim space.
Run a white-space search in EurekaWatch whether the pullback reverses
Filings fell 64% from 2021 to 2024. Whether 2025–2026 filings (once fully published) reverse or extend that trend will matter for timing a filing strategy.
Track filing trends in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
The dataset ranks 100 companies by record count, with one assignee holding 151 records — well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 52 and tenth-place holder at 36. The top five combined account for 35.7% of all 1,340 records in scope, and the top ten reach 51.4%. That gap between the leader and the rest indicates a genuinely concentrated field rather than a level playing field among many similarly sized filers.
Filings peaked in 2019 at 104 and had already eased to 70 by 2021. From 2021 to 2024 — the most recent year that can be treated as a complete data point — filings fell 64%, from 70 to 25. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around eighteen months, so they should not yet be read as confirming or reversing that trend.
Medicinal preparations (IPC class A61K) appear on 76.3% of the 1,340 records, making it by far the densest claim area. Therapeutic activity of compounds (A61P) and heterocyclic compounds (C07D) follow at 30.4% and 25.2% respectively. Device-oriented classes such as A61M, covering devices for body fluids, are comparatively thin at 2.7%, suggesting formulation chemistry rather than delivery hardware is where most claim activity sits.
The clearest thin spots by IPC share are device-related classes like A61M (2.7% of records) and pesticide-activity class A01P (3.6%), both well below the formulation-heavy core classes. Stability-indicating analytical methods and fill-volume control for sterile processing also show comparatively low density relative to core A61K formulation claims. These are areas worth a dedicated prior-art search before assuming they are as crowded as the field's headline concentration figures suggest.
The United States leads as a receiving office with 253 filings, ahead of the European Patent Office at 170 and the WIPO/PCT route at 155. Australia, Canada and India form a secondary tier, each around 85 filings. A filer relying only on US or European coverage should check whether that secondary tier matters for their specific commercial markets before assuming freedom to operate.
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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.