Radioligand Therapy Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Filing has plateaued, not accelerated. Filings peaked at 189 in 2024 after growing from 20 in 2017; the 2022 midpoint of 138 shows the growth curve has flattened rather than kept climbing.
- Momentum is falling even among the active filers. The assignees with the most recent-year filings are still posting year-over-year declines of 29% to 82%, and several established names show zero filings in the latest year.
- Claim space concentrates hard in one IPC subclass. A61K covers 1,712 of 1,720 records, so nearly every family is fighting for room inside a single medicinal-preparations classification rather than spreading across the field.
Filing growth compares 2021 (70 records) with 2024 (189) — 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 1,720 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent families at the intersection of radioligand therapy, radiopharmaceutical compositions, and targeted radionuclide therapy, filtered to claims touching isotope supply, chelator chemistry, radiolabeling yield, shelf life, or dosimetry. The classification footprint sits inside A61K51, A61K103, and C07B59 — the codes covering radioactive medicinal preparations, targeting compositions, and general chemical process claims that support them.
The corpus spans 1,720 published families filed between 2017 and 2026, with the most recent year necessarily undercounted because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months. Receiving-office data shows the United States, PCT (WIPO), and Europe carrying the bulk of filings, with Australia, Canada, and Israel forming a secondary tier — a spread consistent with a field still filing broadly for jurisdictional coverage rather than consolidating around one market.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,720-family corpus: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how records distribute across the IPC subclasses that define the field's chemistry.
A decade of growth followed by a plateau
Annual filings rose from 20 in 2017 to a peak of 189 in 2024, crossing the 138-filing midpoint by 2022. The slide to 17 in 2026 reflects publication lag more than a real drop-off, but the flattening from 2022 onward predates that lag and points to a maturing rather than expanding claim space.
Concentration inside medicinal preparations
A61K accounts for 1,712 of 1,720 records — almost the entire corpus — with A61P (therapeutic activity, 629), C07K (peptides and proteins, 330), and C07F (organo-metallic compounds, 234) forming the next tier. C07B (organic chemistry methods, 195), C07D (heterocyclics, 163), A61M (body-fluid devices, 77), and A61N (radiation therapy, 64) trail well behind, suggesting delivery-device and electrotherapy angles are comparatively under-filed relative to the composition claims that dominate A61K.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,720 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Radioligand and Radiopharmaceutical Therapy with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about radioligand and radiopharmaceutical therapy and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaKey patents shaping the field
US20250345470A1 — Low-toxicity actinium radiopharmaceutical composition
Filed by Curium US LLC and published November 2025, this application claims a high-energy, low-toxicity actinium-225 radiopharmaceutical composition — specifically 225Ac-PSMA I&T combined with sodium ascorbate and optionally hydrochloric acid — positioned for improved shelf-life stability and targeted treatment of prostate cancer.Representative of a current filing wave: stabilizer-and-radioisotope combination claims aimed squarely at shelf-life problems rather than new targeting chemistry.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5428139A | Bicyclopolyazamacrocyclophosphonic acid complexes for use as radiopharmaceuticals | 474 |
| 2 | US5942209A | Method of local radiotherapy by polymerizing a material in vivo to form a hydrogel | 344 |
| 3 | US6143274A | Method for imaging and radiopharmaceutical therapy using 1-substituted-4,7,10-tricarboxymethyl-1,4,7,10-tetra… | 251 |
| 4 | US6689338B2 | Bioconjugates of nanoparticles as radiopharmaceuticals | 217 |
| 5 | US5891418A | Peptide-metal ion pharmaceutical constructs and applications | 156 |
| 6 | WO2008083313A2 | Methods and systems for integrated radiopharmaceutical generation, preparation, transportation, and administr… | 120 |
| 7 | US20040258614A1 | Microparticles for microarterial imaging and radiotherapy | 118 |
| 8 | US6870175B2 | Delivery methods, systems and components for use with radiopharmaceutical substances | 98 |
| 9 | US20070140959A1 | Method of preparing rhenium-tricarbonyl complex and its precursor | 87 |
| 10 | US20010006616A1 | Polymeric delivery of radionuclides and radiopharmaceuticals | 85 |
Citation counts favor older filings simply because they have had more years to accumulate citations inside this searched corpus; treat rank here as a measure of influence, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the data indicates
Four patterns stand out once filing volume, classification spread, and citation depth are read together.
Growth has flattened since the 2022 midpoint
Filings grew nearly tenfold from 20 in 2017 to 189 at their 2024 peak, but the climb from the 2022 midpoint of 138 to that peak was modest. The field expanded fast early, then slowed before the most recent, lag-affected years even begin.
Nearly every family sits inside one subclass
A61K's near-total coverage means composition and formulation claims dominate; the comparatively thin A61M and A61N counts suggest delivery-device and radiation-therapy-equipment angles are far less contested.
Even the filers still active are pulling back
Every assignee with measurable recent-year output — including the most active — shows a year-over-year decline, and several previously prominent names recorded zero filings in the latest year.
Foundational chelator patents still anchor the field
The most-cited record, on bicyclopolyazamacrocyclophosphonic acid complexes, and the next several on the list are all chelator or targeting-construct patents from the 1990s, underscoring how much current formulation work still builds on that chemistry base.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to radioligand and radiopharmaceutical therapy, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and how their activity is shifting
Assignee filing patterns here show broad participation rather than a single dominant player, with co-filing pairs pointing to a handful of standing collaborations.
A small number of deep, standing collaborations
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the corpus, with the strongest pairing sharing 31 families and the next two sharing 28 and 16. These look like corporate-affiliate filing pairs rather than arm's-length joint ventures.
The most active recent filer is still contracting
The assignee with the highest recent-year filing count logged only 5 filings, down 29% year over year — the mildest decline among tracked assignees, which puts it in relative terms as the field's current pace-setter.
Several established names have gone quiet
More than one assignee with a substantial filing history shows zero filings in the latest tracked year, which may reflect portfolio consolidation, licensing-out strategies, or a shift of R&D effort away from patenting toward trial execution.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| RayzeBio | 5 | -29% |
| Novartis AG (Switzerland) | 2 | -50% |
| Curium US LLC | 2 | -82% |
| GE Healthcare Limited | 0 | -100% |
| Mallinckrodt LLC | 0 | — |
| Bracco Imaging S.p.A. | 0 | — |
| Point Biopharma Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| INST NACIONAL DE INVESTIGACIONES NUCLEARES | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The filing and citation patterns above raise specific follow-up questions that a static report can't answer on its own.
Map freedom-to-operate around chelator claims
The oldest, most-cited patents in this corpus are chelator and targeting-construct patents still in force in some jurisdictions. A claim-by-claim comparison against a specific formulation is the next step before committing to a chemistry.
Run a claim comparison in EurekaTrack the assignees still filing
Recent-year momentum data shows a small set of assignees still active despite declining volume. Monitoring their filing cadence over the next few quarters will clarify whether the plateau is field-wide or firm-specific.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaProbe the under-claimed branches directly
Delivery-device and dosimetry-linked claims sit well behind composition claims in filing volume. A targeted prior-art search in those branches can confirm whether the gap is real white space or simply unindexed.
Search white space in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The ranking in this dataset shows filing activity spread across a number of assignees rather than dominated by a single company, and co-assignee pairs indicate that some of the largest filers are corporate affiliates filing jointly. Recent-year momentum data shows that even the most active current filers are posting year-over-year declines, so historical filing counts and current filing activity tell different stories. Anyone assessing 'who leads' should look at both the cumulative family count and the recent-year trend before drawing a conclusion, since a large historical portfolio does not guarantee current R&D investment.
Filing volume grew substantially from 20 families in 2017 to a peak of 189 in 2024, but growth had already slowed by the 2022 midpoint of 138 filings, well before the most recent years where publication lag understates the true count. Recent-year momentum by individual assignee shows declines across the board, with drops ranging from roughly 29% to over 80% year over year. Taken together, this points to a field that expanded quickly through the late 2010s and early 2020s and has since plateaued rather than one still accelerating.
US20250345470A1, filed by Curium US LLC and published in November 2025, claims a radiopharmaceutical composition combining actinium-225 (specifically 225Ac-PSMA I&T) with sodium ascorbate and optionally hydrochloric acid, aimed at improving shelf-life stability while treating prostate cancer as a targeted radionuclide therapy. It is a composition and stabilization claim rather than a new targeting-chemistry claim — the underlying PSMA-targeting construct is not new, but the stabilizer combination and the shelf-life claims are the novel elements. Anyone formulating an actinium-225 product with a different stabilizer package should check this filing's specific claim language before finalizing a formulation.
Filing density is heavily concentrated in A61K composition claims, which cover 1,712 of the 1,720 records in this dataset, while A61M (body-fluid delivery devices) and A61N (radiation therapy equipment) trail far behind at 77 and 64 records respectively. This gap suggests device-side and delivery-mechanism claims are comparatively under-claimed relative to the chemistry itself. Dosimetry-linked dosage-form claims and radiolabeling yield process controls also appear thinner than the core composition space, making them worth a dedicated prior-art search before assuming the ground is occupied.
Patent publication typically lags the actual filing date by around 18 months, so any trend line's final year or two will always understate real filing activity — the 17 filings shown for 2026 in this dataset are not a genuine collapse but an artifact of records not yet published. The more meaningful signal is the trend from 2022 to 2024, which shows growth already slowing before the lag effect kicks in. Readers should treat the last one to two years of any filing trend as a floor, not a final count.
Research Radioligand and Radiopharmaceutical Therapy in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole radioligand and radiopharmaceutical therapy corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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.