Synthetic Tissue Adhesives Patents: Leaders & Filing Trends 2026
- 14.2% concentration at the top. The five leading assignees hold 704 of 4,968 records in scope — a real lead, but not a lock on the field.
- Filing cooled after a 2017 peak. Filings hit 281 in 2017 and, on the last complete comparison, fell 41% from 190 (2021) to 113 (2024).
- Adhesives claims are a minority class. Only 14.4% of records sit in C09J (Adhesives) — most of the corpus is filed under drug and sterilisation classes instead.
Filing growth compares 2021 (190 records) with 2024 (113) — 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 4,968 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this dataset covers
Synthetic tissue adhesives sit at the intersection of surgical hardware and medicinal chemistry. The search string behind this dataset pairs adhesive terms (tissue adhesive, cyanoacrylate adhesive, surgical glue) with the performance properties that actually decide whether a formulation reaches a hospital shelf: cure exotherm, wet adhesion, cytotoxicity, flexibility after cure, peel strength, shelf stability. That pairing is deliberate — it screens out adhesive patents that never address biological performance, and screens out drug patents that never address bonding.
The result is 4,968 published records spanning 2015 through the middle of 2026. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend chart will look thinner than they eventually turn out to be.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 4,968 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the records actually sit in.
Filing trend: a 2017 peak, then a pullback
Annual filings peaked at 281 in 2017. Using the last two complete years available for comparison, filings fell 41% from 190 in 2021 to 113 in 2024. Treat 2025 and 2026 figures as provisional; they will revise upward as publication catches up.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
A61K (Medicinal preparations) and A61L (Sterilising & disinfecting) dominate, covering 43.4% and 36.1% of the 4,968 records respectively — evidence that most filers are protecting the chemistry and biocompatibility of the adhesive, not the bonding mechanism itself. C09J (Adhesives), the subclass most specific to the bonding function, covers only 14.4% of records, and A61F (Implants & prostheses) trails at 8.8%.
Shares are the percentage of the 4,968 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Synthetic Tissue Adhesives with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about synthetic tissue adhesives and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaFoundational and most-cited records
US4560723A — Cyanoacrylate adhesive composition having sustained toughness
Filed by Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company and granted in 1985, this patent covers cyanoacrylate adhesive compositions combining a toughener — a core-shell copolymer such as an MBS, ABS, or MABS type, optionally purified to remove impurities that trigger premature polymerization — with a cyanoacrylate-compatible, toughener-compatible sustainer such as diphenylmethane or dichlorobenzene. The combination improves retention of toughness after heat aging of the cured bond.Long-expired but still a reference point for toughened cyanoacrylate formulation claims.
View full record| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5410016A | Photopolymerizable biodegradable hydrogels as tissue contacting materials and controlled-release carriers | 1,887 |
| 2 | US20090177226A1 | Bioabsorbable Surgical Compositions | 1,366 |
| 3 | US20100100124A1 | Bioabsorbable surgical composition | 1,362 |
| 4 | US20030190584A1 | Rubber Dams With Operative Inserts Which Isolate Anatomical Structures by Effectively Resisting External Vect… | 1,091 |
| 5 | US20140163664A1 | Integrated system for the ballistic and nonballistic infixion and retrieval of implants with or without drug … | 965 |
| 6 | US20130041235A1 | Flexible and Stretchable Electronic Systems for Epidermal Electronics | 854 |
| 7 | US20100210745A1 | Molecular Healing of Polymeric Materials, Coatings, Plastics, Elastomers, Composites, Laminates, Adhesives, a… | 717 |
| 8 | US6372494B1 | Methods of making conditioned cell culture medium compositions | 527 |
| 9 | US6428576B1 | System for repairing inter-vertebral discs | 475 |
| 10 | US5626863A | Photopolymerizable biodegradable hydrogels as tissue contacting materials and controlled-release carriers | 473 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings — read these as signals of influence on later filers, not as a measure of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Four readings of the same dataset, each pointing at a different decision a filer or licensor needs to make.
A real lead, not a dominant position
The five leading assignees combine for 704 of 4,968 records, and the top ten add up to 24.5%. That is enough to matter in a freedom-to-operate search, but it leaves roughly three-quarters of the field held by assignees outside the top ten — a long tail rather than a controlled bottleneck.
Volume has pulled back from its 2017 peak
Filing peaked at 281 records in 2017 and, across the last three-year span with complete data, dropped 41% by 2024. That is a genuine cooling in filing volume rather than a data artefact, though the very latest years will still revise upward as publications land.
Most claims protect chemistry, not bonding
A61K (medicinal preparations) and A61L (sterilising & disinfecting) between them touch the majority of records, while C09J (adhesives proper) reaches only 14.4%. Filers are more often staking out the biocompatible chemistry and sterility profile of a formulation than the adhesive mechanism itself.
US and EPO carry the bulk of filings
The United States leads receiving offices at 1,380 records, ahead of the EPO at 840 and WIPO/PCT at 737. Australia and Canada trail well behind, suggesting most applicants treat US and European coverage as the baseline and file more selectively elsewhere.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to synthetic tissue adhesives, with the prior art for and against each one.
Assignee landscape and where claim space is still open
The ranked leaders span large medical device and pharma names alongside academic and research-institute assignees — a mix that reflects how tissue adhesive work spans surgical products, drug-device combinations, and basic materials research.
A clear top position, not a runaway lead
The leading assignee holds 176 records against a fifth-place figure of 106 and a tenth-place figure of 101 — a gradual taper rather than a cliff, which means displacement further down the ranking is plausible for a well-targeted filing programme.
Collaboration is concentrated among a few institutions
The strongest co-assignee pairs recur around the same handful of research institutions, with one pairing appearing at 94 shared records and two others at 79 each — evidence of sustained joint filing programmes rather than one-off co-invention.
Several established filers show no recent activity
A number of assignees that built meaningful portfolios show zero filings in the latest tracked year, some with a -100% year-on-year change. Given publication lag, this understates true recent activity, but a sustained drop-off across several institutions at once is still a signal worth checking against internal roadmaps before assuming continued output.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Melinta Subsidiary Corp | 0 | — |
| Melinta Therapeutics Inc | 0 | — |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 0 | -100% |
| Cytrellis Biosystems | 0 | -100% |
| Medical Logic Integrated Corp | 0 | — |
| Institucio Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avancats (ICREA) | 0 | — |
| Fundacio Privada Institut d'Investigacio Oncologica de Vall d'Hebron (VHIO) | 0 | — |
| Ethicon Inc | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The figures here describe the shape of the field. Turning that into a filing or licensing decision means drilling into specific claims and specific assignees.
Run a freedom-to-operate check on a specific formulation
Concentration at the top ten (24.5% of records) does not mean the rest of the field is open — it means the remaining claims are dispersed across many smaller filers, which takes targeted searching to map.
Explore this dataset in Patsnap EurekaTrack momentum, not just headline counts
Several assignees with strong historical portfolios show no filings in the latest tracked year. Confirm whether that reflects publication lag or an actual shift before treating it as white space.
Set up assignee tracking in Patsnap EurekaCompare claim scope on the adhesives-specific subclass
C09J covers only 14.4% of records, far behind the chemistry-heavy classes. A close read of those claims specifically is more useful than a broad read across the whole corpus.
Pull the C09J subset in Patsnap EurekaCommon questions on synthetic tissue adhesive patents
Across the 4,968 records in this dataset, the leading assignee holds 176 records, with the top five assignees combined holding 704 records — 14.2% of the total. That leadership is real but not overwhelming: the drop from first to fifth place is gradual rather than steep, and the top ten together account for only 24.5% of all records. The remaining three-quarters of filings are spread across a long tail of smaller assignees, including several academic and research-institute filers.
Filing peaked at 281 records in 2017 and has since pulled back; using the most recent years with complete publication data, filings fell 41% from 190 in 2021 to 113 in 2024. That is a genuine multi-year decline in filing volume, not a data artefact. Figures for 2025 and 2026 should be read as provisional, since publication typically lags filing by around 18 months and those years will revise upward as more records surface.
US4560723A, granted in 1985 to Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company, claims cyanoacrylate adhesive compositions that combine a toughener — a core-shell copolymer such as MBS, ABS, or MABS types — with a compatible sustainer compound such as diphenylmethane, to retain toughness after heat aging. The patent is long expired, so it no longer blocks new filings directly, but its claim structure remains a common reference point when drafting toughened cyanoacrylate formulation claims and assessing what counts as novel over the early art.
A61K (medicinal preparations) and A61L (sterilising and disinfecting) are the two largest classes, covering 43.4% and 36.1% of the 4,968 records respectively, which shows most filers protect the chemistry and biocompatibility of a formulation rather than the mechanical bond itself. C09J, the subclass most specific to adhesives as a function, covers only 14.4% of records. A filer targeting the bonding mechanism specifically should expect thinner prior art in C09J than in the chemistry-heavy classes, but should still search across both.
The technology composition data shows adhesive-specific claims (C09J, 14.4%) and implant-specific claims (A61F, 8.8%) are comparatively under-represented next to the dominant chemistry and sterilisation classes. Specific sub-areas worth checking for thinner coverage include wet-field haemostatic bonding, cure exotherm control at body-contact sites, and shelf-stable single-component formulations. Any white-space claim should still be checked against the full corpus rather than assumed open on the strength of subclass share alone.
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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.