Radiopharmaceutical Manufacturing Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Filing jumped +450% from 2021 to 2024 (2 to 11 records), the clearest sign yet that dose-dispensing and hot-cell claims are being staked out now, not settled history.
- One leader sits well clear of a 59-strong field, with a five-record gap down to fifth place and a long tail of single-digit filers below tenth.
- Medicinal preparations (A61K) touch 57.6% of the 165 records, while radiation protection and shielding (G21F) sits at just 12.1% — hardware claims are comparatively thin.
Filing growth compares 2021 (2 records) with 2024 (11) — 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.
What this patent set covers
This landscape tracks 165 published records filed against radiopharmaceutical manufacturing infrastructure: shielded hot cells, aseptic dispensing lines, dose dispensing and transport shielding, quality-control release testing, decay correction and the site-licensing steps that sit around them. The search string pairs manufacturing and radiopharmacy terms with the specific operational vocabulary — hot cell, aseptic process, transport shielding — that separates a genuine manufacturing claim from a broader radiopharmaceutical composition filing.
Coverage runs from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 cut-off. Because publication typically lags filing by around eighteen months, the 2025 and 2026 counts in any trend chart are still filling in and should not be read as a slowdown.
Let an AI agent run this analysis on your own technology
Pick a task. Every answer cites the patents behind it.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 165-record set: how filing activity has moved year on year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing activity climbed sharply into 2024
Annual filings peaked at 27 in 2017, cooled, then rebuilt: 2021's count of 2 records grew to 11 by 2024, a +450% rise over that three-year span. 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete due to publication lag and should not be read against the peak.
Composition claims dominate; hardware claims are thinner
A61K (medicinal preparations) appears on 57.6% of the 165 records and A61P (therapeutic activity) on 29.7%, showing the corpus skews toward what is being dispensed rather than the equipment dispensing it. G21F (radiation protection and shielding) and G21G (nuclear conversion) each sit near 11-12%, and B01F (mixing and stirring) and A61J (medicine containers) hover in the low teens — the physical hot-cell and dispensing-hardware side of the field is comparatively under-filed relative to the pharmaceutical composition side.
Shares are the percentage of the 165 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Radiopharmaceutical Manufacturing with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about radiopharmaceutical manufacturing and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe records shaping this space
Somatostatin receptor-targeting radiopharmaceuticals and uses thereof
Pharmaceutical compositions comprising [61Cu]Cu-NODAGA-LM3 or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt, for imaging subjects suspected of having or diagnosed with an SST2-expressing tumor by administering the composition and generating radiographic images.Filed 2026-06-04 by Nuclidium AG — illustrates the current push toward copper-61 targeted imaging agents built on defined chelator-peptide constructs.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20110178359A1 | Systems For Integrated Radiopharmaceutical Generation, Preparation, Transportation and Administration | 282 |
| 2 | WO2008083313A2 | Methods and systems for integrated radiopharmaceutical generation, preparation, transportation, and administr… | 120 |
| 3 | US20110209764A1 | Apparatus and Methods for Delivery of Fluid Injection Boluses to Patients and Handling Harmful Fluids | 89 |
| 4 | WO2009149367A1 | Apparatus and methods for delivery of fluid injection boluses to patients and handling harmful fluids | 58 |
| 5 | WO1997036578A1 | Spray-dried microparticles as therapeutic vehicles for use in gene therapy | 49 |
| 6 | US9056200B2 | Apparatus and methods for delivery of fluid injection boluses to patients and handling harmful fluids | 41 |
| 7 | US9750953B2 | Apparatus and methods for delivery of fluid injection boluses to patients and handling harmful fluids | 38 |
| 8 | US9326742B2 | Systems for integrated radiopharmaceutical generation, preparation, transportation and administration | 37 |
| 9 | WO2003034444A1 | Radiopharmaceutical capsule dispensing system | 35 |
| 10 | US20140046295A1 | Apparatus and Methods for Delivery of Fluid Injection Boluses to Patients and Handling Harmful Fluids | 33 |
Citation counts reward older filings that have had years to accumulate references — treat them as a signal of influence within this corpus, not as a ranking of current technical importance.
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 numbers mean for a filing decision
Three read-throughs from the trend, class and citation data that matter more than the raw counts themselves.
Activity is rebuilding, not winding down
After a 2017 peak of 27 records, annual filings fell before recovering: 2021's 2 records grew to 11 by 2024. That three-year swing is the strongest recent signal in the dataset and argues against treating this as a mature, settled field.
One filer sits well ahead of the pack
The leading assignee holds 32 records against 23 for fifth place, then the field thins quickly to single digits by tenth. That gap suggests the leader has staked broad early claims that later entrants have had to file around rather than through.
Pharmaceutical claims outweigh shielding claims
Medicinal-preparation claims (A61K) touch more than half the record set; radiation-shielding claims (G21F) sit near one in eight. Hot-cell and transport-shielding hardware looks comparatively open relative to the composition side.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to radiopharmaceutical manufacturing, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the room still opens up
The ranking spans 59 companies drawn from academic medical centres, imaging majors and specialist radiopharma manufacturers — not a top-50 or top-100 cut, but the full ranked field the dataset returns.
A clear lead with academic and specialist company presence
The top assignee's 32 records put it well ahead of a fifth-place count of 23, and momentum data shows several leading names posting flat or declining latest-year counts — consistent with early leaders defending established ground rather than expanding it.
Collaboration is concentrated around one strong pairing
Of the ten co-assignee pairs found, one pairing between a specialist radiopharma manufacturer and its parent group accounts for the strongest link at 23 shared records — most other co-filing relationships in the set are much thinner.
A long tail below the top ten
Filing drops from 32 at the top to 6 by tenth place, and continues thinning across the remaining ranked field. That shape points to a market with one or two entrenched filers and many single- or few-record entrants testing narrow claims.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Johns Hopkins University | 1 | 0% |
| The Regents of the University of California | 1 | — |
| RadioMedix Inc. | 0 | — |
| GE Healthcare Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| Scinogy Products Pty Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| ORANO MED | 0 | — |
| Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research | 0 | — |
| Medrad Inc. | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, portfolio strategy or technical scouting.
Check freedom-to-operate on hot-cell hardware
With G21F and B01F claim density well below A61K, a hardware-focused search on shielding and mixing mechanisms is likely to surface fewer blocking claims than a composition search would.
Run a freedom-to-operate searchTrack the leader's recent filing behaviour
The top assignee's flat latest-year momentum is worth monitoring against its 32-record base — a resumed filing pace there would signal renewed investment in this exact claim space.
Set up assignee monitoringMap the co-filing network in detail
Ten identified co-assignee pairs, with one dominant pairing, suggest a small set of manufacturing partnerships shapes much of this field's IP strategy.
Explore collaboration mappingCommon questions on radiopharmaceutical manufacturing patents
This dataset identifies 165 published records in scope, covering shielded hot cells, aseptic dispensing, dose dispensing, transport shielding, quality-control release testing and related manufacturing steps between 2015 and the 2026-07-31 cut-off. The count reflects a specific search string combining radiopharmacy manufacturing terms with operational vocabulary, so it is narrower than the full radiopharmaceutical composition literature. Because publication lags filing by roughly eighteen months, the true 2025-2026 total will be higher once later filings publish.
The ranked field spans 59 companies, led by a single assignee with 32 records against 23 for the fifth-placed filer, dropping to 6 by tenth place. The leaders in this space combine academic medical centres, established imaging and pharmaceutical companies, and specialist radiopharmaceutical manufacturers. Recent-year momentum data shows several of the top names posting flat or declining latest-year filing counts, which is more consistent with defending existing claims than expanding aggressively.
Yes, on the most recent complete data: filings rose from 2 records in 2021 to 11 in 2024, a +450% increase over that three-year span, after an earlier peak of 27 records in 2017. The intervening years show a slower period between that peak and the 2021 trough. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete due to publication lag and should not be read as evidence of a slowdown.
The IPC composition shows radiation shielding (G21F, 12.1% of records) and nuclear conversion (G21G, 10.9%) trailing well behind medicinal-preparation claims (A61K, 57.6%), suggesting the physical manufacturing hardware — hot cells, transport shielding, automated dispensing — carries less claim density than the pharmaceutical composition side. Specific sub-areas worth checking include automated hot-cell dose dispensing, transport shielding sized for short half-life isotopes, and decay-correction software integration, none of which show dense citation clustering in this dataset. A prospective filer should still run a targeted freedom-to-operate search before assuming any of these are genuinely open.
The most recent representative record, US20260151517A1 filed by Nuclidium AG on 2026-06-04, claims pharmaceutical compositions built around a copper-61 labelled NODAGA-LM3 conjugate, used for imaging patients with somatostatin receptor subtype 2-expressing tumours. Its claims sit on the composition and diagnostic-use side of the field rather than the manufacturing-hardware side, so it does not block hot-cell or dispensing equipment approaches. Anyone working with this specific chelator-peptide-isotope combination for SST2 imaging should review the claim scope directly before proceeding.
Research Radiopharmaceutical Manufacturing in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole radiopharmaceutical manufacturing 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.