Plasma Fractionation Process Design Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- Concentrated at the top. The five leading filers account for 41.5% of all 2,057 records in scope, and the top ten reach 59.6% — a small group has staked out most of the documented process claim space.
- Filings peaked in 2017. Annual filings hit 124 that year and, on the only complete recent span, fell from 65 in 2021 to 34 in 2024, a 48% drop — though 2025-26 figures are still filling in under normal publication lag.
- Peptide and preparation classes dominate. C07K and A61K each cover more than half of all records, while separation-process class B01D sits at just 10.4% — a gap between where the chemistry is claimed and where the unit operations are.
Filing growth compares 2021 (65 records) with 2024 (34) — 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 2,057 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Plasma fractionation process design sits at the intersection of protein chemistry and manufacturing engineering: precipitation steps, ethanol concentration control, temperature staging and paste handling that determine yield and purity when separating immunoglobulins, albumin and clotting factors from pooled plasma. This search set pulls 2,057 records published between 2015 and mid-2026 that reference cold ethanol fractionation or plasma fractionation together with at least one process-economics or yield-control term.
The dataset is dominated by a handful of large plasma-products manufacturers whose filings span multiple jurisdictions and business entities under the same corporate family, which inflates raw document counts relative to underlying inventive families. Read the concentration figures below as a picture of claim occupancy, not of technical maturity.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 2,057-record set: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the records fall into.
Filings rose to a 2017 peak, then declined
Annual filings reached 124 in 2017, the high point of the series. On the last span with complete publication data, filings fell from 65 in 2021 to 34 in 2024 — a 48% decline. Counts from 2025 onward are understated because publication typically lags filing by about 18 months.
Protein chemistry classes outweigh separation-process classes
C07K (peptides and proteins) appears in 63.7% of records and A61K (medicinal preparations) in 58.4%, reflecting how heavily this corpus is anchored in the target biologics rather than the equipment used to isolate them. B01D (separation processes) covers only 10.4% and A61M (devices for body fluids) just 2.6% — the unit-operations side of the process is comparatively lightly claimed. Classes overlap on individual records, so these shares sum to more than 100% of the record total.
Shares are the percentage of the 2,057 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Plasma Fractionation Process Design with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about plasma fractionation process design and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative claim and the most-cited prior art
Improved process for the preparation of immunoglobulin G (IgG)
The present invention is directed to processes for extracting IgG from an unused waste precipitate produced during normal plasma fractionation processes via a separate fractionation process, thereby increasing the overall yield of IgG from blood plasma.Filed by Bio Products Laboratory Limited; granted 2020-05-28.
View full record| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5177194A | Process for purifying immune serum globulins | 180 |
| 2 | WO1999064462A1 | Process for producing immunoglobulins for intravenous administration and other immunoglobulin products | 165 |
| 3 | WO2005073252A1 | Process for the manufacture of virus safe immunoglobulin | 151 |
| 4 | US20090180933A1 | reactor | 141 |
| 5 | US4136094A | Preparation of intravenous human and animal gamma globulins and isolation of albumin | 137 |
| 6 | US20100074885A1 | Combinations and methods for subcutaneous administration of immune globulin and hyaluronidase | 127 |
| 7 | US6281336B1 | Process for producing immunoglobulins for intravenous administration and other immunoglobulin products | 124 |
| 8 | US20110066111A1 | Stable co-formulation of hyaluronidase and immunoglobulin, and methods of use thereof | 119 |
| 9 | WO2008113589A1 | Methods for industrial scale production of therapeutic complement factor h preparations from human plasma | 104 |
| 10 | US4639513A | Intravenously injectable immunoglobulin G (IGG) and method for producing same | 104 |
Citation counts accumulate over time and favour older filings; treat them as a measure of influence on later art, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three findings that shape how a new entrant should read this space.
A small group holds most of the ground
The five leading assignees combined account for 41.5% of all records in scope, rising to 59.6% across the top ten. New filings in core precipitation and yield-control claims will sit close to prior art from the same handful of corporate families, several of which share co-assignee filings across related entities.
Activity has cooled from its 2017 high
Filings peaked at 124 in 2017 and, over the only recent span with complete publication data, dropped from 65 in 2021 to 34 in 2024. That decline predates the publication-lag window, so it reflects a genuine slowdown in disclosed filing activity rather than a reporting artefact.
Process engineering is thinly claimed relative to the chemistry
Protein and preparation classes (C07K, A61K) dominate the corpus, while separation processes (B01D) and body-fluid devices (A61M) cover a much smaller share of records. This gap suggests process-engineering claims around filtration, paste handling and reactor design face less crowded prior art than composition and formulation claims.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to plasma fractionation process design, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the activity has stalled
The ranked assignee list covers 100 companies drawn from the 2,057 records in scope. Recent-year momentum figures show that even the largest historical filers have gone quiet in the latest tracked year.
The largest filer outpaces the field by a wide margin
The leading assignee holds more than three times the record count of the fifth-placed filer (98), and more than five times the tenth-placed filer (61) — a steep drop-off rather than a gradual taper.
Corporate restructuring shows up as shared filings
The strongest co-assignee pairing links two entities from the same corporate group at 173 shared records, with a second pair from another group at 137. These pairs reflect how large plasma manufacturers file the same inventions under multiple related legal entities.
Even leading filers show near-zero recent activity
Several of the historically largest assignees, including entities behind the top co-filing pairs, recorded zero filings in the latest tracked year, and the one filer still active dropped 50% year over year. This is consistent with the broader 2021-2024 decline rather than a single company's retreat.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited | 1 | -50% |
| Alkahest Inc | 0 | -100% |
| Baxter International Inc | 0 | — |
| Baxter Healthcare SA | 0 | — |
| Baxalta Inc | 0 | — |
| Baxalta GmbH | 0 | — |
| CSL Behring AG | 0 | -100% |
| Biotest AG | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether you are scoping freedom-to-operate or looking for filing opportunities.
Map the co-assignee clusters
Trace the strongest co-assignee pairs back to their underlying corporate structures to understand which entity actually controls a given family before assuming it is open.
Explore assignee relationshipsTest claims against the under-claimed branches
Draft candidate claims around paste handling, in-line monitoring or continuous reactor design and check them against the denser C07K and A61K prior art before committing search budget elsewhere.
Run a claims comparisonWatch the 2025-2026 publication window
Because publication lags filing by about 18 months, filings from the last two years are still arriving. Revisit the trend once this window closes before concluding the slowdown has continued.
Track filing trendsCommon questions about this landscape
The ranked assignee list for this dataset is led by a single filer with 324 records, well ahead of the fifth-placed filer at 98 and the tenth at 61. Several of the largest historical filers belong to the same corporate groups, filing related inventions under different legal entities such as manufacturing and holding subsidiaries. The top five filers combined account for 41.5% of all 2,057 records in scope, and the top ten reach 59.6%, so a new entrant should expect to encounter prior art from a small set of corporate families in almost any core precipitation or yield-control search.
Filings peaked in 2017 at 124 for the year and, over the most recent span with complete publication data, fell from 65 in 2021 to 34 in 2024 — a 48% decline. That is a genuine drop rather than a reporting gap, since it covers years old enough to have finished publishing. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so it is too early to say whether the decline has continued, stabilised or reversed.
Relative to the volume of records covering the underlying protein chemistry, separation-process claims are comparatively thin: B01D, the subclass covering filtration and separation equipment, appears in only 10.4% of the 2,057 records, versus 63.7% for C07K (peptides and proteins) and 58.4% for A61K (medicinal preparations). This points to unit-operations areas like continuous precipitation reactor design, in-line ethanol concentration monitoring and paste-handling automation as places where process claims are less densely packed than composition or formulation claims.
AU2015293643B2, assigned to Bio Products Laboratory Limited and granted in 2020, covers a process for extracting IgG from an otherwise unused waste precipitate generated during standard plasma fractionation, using a separate secondary fractionation process to recover additional immunoglobulin yield. It is a yield-improvement patent on downstream processing of an intermediate that other fractionation processes would normally discard, rather than a claim over the primary fractionation route itself. Anyone recovering IgG from precipitate waste streams in a broadly similar manner should review this claim scope directly before designing a comparable step.
Large plasma manufacturers frequently file the same underlying invention across multiple jurisdictions and under multiple related legal entities within the same corporate group, and co-assignee pairs in this dataset reach as high as 173 shared records between two entities from one group. Raw document counts therefore overstate the number of distinct inventions relative to patent families, which consolidate continuations and multi-country filings of the same invention. When comparing filer strength, family-level counts are the fairer measure than raw publication counts.
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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.