Vaccine Adjuvant Systems Patents: Who Leads, Where Gaps Are 2026
- 72.7% concentration. The top five assignees alone account for 5,183 of the 7,134 records in scope — this is a field with a narrow set of incumbents, not a fragmented one.
- Filings have cooled from a 2017 peak. 226 records published that year against 10 so far in the still-filling-in most recent year; on the reliable window, 2021's 133 fell to 98 by 2024, a -26% move.
- A61K dominates, but peptide and genetic-engineering classes trail closely. 90.9% of records sit in medicinal preparations, while C07K peptide/protein claims (40.6%) and C12N microorganism/genetic engineering claims (27.7%) mark where formulation work is concentrating.
Filing growth compares 2021 (133 records) with 2024 (98) — 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 7,134 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the adjuvant system patent record actually shows
Vaccine adjuvant systems cover the formulation science that makes an antigen provoke a stronger or more durable immune response — aluminium salts, squalene emulsions, receptor agonists and the dose-sparing formulations built around them. The dataset in scope covers 7,134 published records filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026, drawn from a search string anchored on adjuvant formulation and system terms crossed with the specific chemistries and effects (aluminium salt, squalene emulsion, receptor agonist, antigen adsorption, reactogenicity, dose sparing) that define the space.
The record set skews toward a small number of long-standing vaccine developers who filed heavily around a mid-2010s peak, with publication counts tapering since — a pattern consistent with a field where core formulation chemistry was staked out early and subsequent filings refine rather than reinvent it. Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, the last one to two years in any chart will always look thinner than they eventually turn out to be.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 7,134-record set: how filing activity has moved year on year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
A 2017 peak, followed by a multi-year decline on the reliable data
Published records ran from 226 in 2017 down to 10 in the current (partial) year. On the window that is not distorted by publication lag, 2021's 133 records fell to 98 by 2024 — a -26% move over three years. Treat 2025 and 2026 figures as provisional; they will revise upward as later publications land.
Medicinal preparations dominate; peptide and genetic-engineering classes follow
A61K (medicinal preparations) appears on 90.9% of the 7,134 records, confirming that formulation claims are the field's centre of gravity. C07K peptide/protein claims (40.6%) and A61P therapeutic-activity claims (40.5%) run close behind, with C12N microorganism and genetic-engineering claims at 27.7% marking a secondary cluster around biologic antigen production. Because records carry multiple IPC codes, these shares sum to well over 100% and should be read against the record total, not against each other.
Shares are the percentage of the 7,134 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Vaccine Adjuvant Systems with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about vaccine adjuvant systems and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative claim: RIG-I agonist adjuvant formulation
RIG-I agonist and adjuvant formulation for tumor treatment
The filing, from Access to Advanced Health Institute and published 2022-12-15, formulates a synthetic oligonucleotide RIG-I agonist with a squalene emulsion adjuvant for cancer immunotherapy, claiming that the emulsion formulation improves the agonist's ability to slow tumor growth relative to the agonist alone.Illustrates how the corpus extends beyond infectious-disease prophylactics into oncology applications of the same adjuvant chemistries.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO1999011241A1 | Oil in water emulsions containing saponins | 1,079 |
| 2 | WO1999052549A1 | Adjuvant compositions | 1,024 |
| 3 | WO2000023105A2 | Adjuvant systems and vaccines | 755 |
| 4 | WO2000007621A2 | vaccine | 755 |
| 5 | WO1998057659A1 | Adjuvant compositions for vaccines | 701 |
| 6 | WO2001021152A1 | Adjuvant comprising a polyxyethylene alkyl ether or ester and at least one nonionic surfactant | 700 |
| 7 | WO2000056360A2 | vaccine | 683 |
| 8 | WO2001021207A2 | Use of combination of polyoxyethylene sorbitan ester and octoxynol as adjuvant and its use in vaccines | 665 |
| 9 | WO1999012565A1 | vaccines | 437 |
| 10 | WO2018078053A1 | Lipid nanoparticle mRNA vaccines | 405 |
Ranked by citation count within the searched corpus; older filings accumulate citations simply by being available longer, so treat this as a signal of influence on later filers rather than of present-day 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 numbers mean for filing strategy
Three read-throughs from the concentration, trend and citation data that matter for anyone deciding where to file next.
A narrow incumbent set, not a fragmented field
The leading assignee alone holds 4,440 records, and the top five combined reach 5,183 of the 7,134 records in scope. Entrants filing adjacent formulation claims are filing into dense prior art held by a small number of long-established vaccine developers.
Filing activity has cooled from its 2017 peak
226 records published in 2017 marked the high point; on the reliable 2021-2024 window, output fell 26%. Recent-year figures for leading assignees show several dropping to zero or near-zero filings in the latest year, though publication lag means this should not yet be read as exit from the field.
Formulation claims dominate, but peptide chemistry is a strong second track
With A61K present on 90.9% of records, most claims sit squarely in medicinal-preparation formulation. But C07K peptide and protein claims on 40.6% of records, alongside C12N genetic-engineering claims on 27.7%, show a substantial secondary track in antigen and carrier design running alongside the adjuvant chemistry itself.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to vaccine adjuvant systems, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claims, and where they are not filing
The ranked leaders are counted in records, not a curated top-50 or top-100 — it is the full ranking the data endpoint returns, and it is dominated by a handful of established vaccine developers plus a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants.
One assignee holds well over half the top-five total
The leading assignee's record count alone exceeds the combined total of positions six through ten, which points to a formulation portfolio built over many years rather than a recent filing surge.
A steep drop after the leading names
Record counts fall sharply between fifth place (159) and tenth place (78), signalling that beyond the top handful of assignees, the field opens into a long tail of smaller filers rather than a gradually thinning ranking.
Leading assignees show near-zero latest-year output
Several of the most active historical filers, including the top-ranked assignee, show zero or sharply reduced filings in the latest year. Given the roughly 18-month publication lag, this likely reflects incomplete data rather than a genuine pullback, but it is worth revisiting once later publications land.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| CureVac SE | 2 | -75% |
| GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals SA | 0 | -100% |
| Infectious Disease Research Institute | 0 | — |
| Glaxo Group Limited | 0 | — |
| Zoetis Services LLC | 0 | -100% |
| THONNARD JOELLE | 0 | — |
| POOLMAN JAN | 0 | — |
| Access to Advanced Health Institute | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this next
The landscape points to where prior art is dense and where it thins out. The next step is turning that into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision specific to your formulation.
Map a specific formulation against the leader's portfolio
With one assignee holding 4,440 of 7,134 records, any new aluminium-salt or squalene-emulsion filing should be checked claim-by-claim against that portfolio before drafting.
Explore assignee portfolios in EurekaCheck the under-claimed branches for a first-filer position
Dose-sparing delivery and reactogenicity-linked formulation claims show thinner coverage than core A61K formulation claims — worth a focused search before assuming the space is occupied.
Run a white space search in EurekaCommon questions on vaccine adjuvant patents
The assignee ranking is heavily concentrated: a single leading assignee holds 4,440 of the 7,134 records in scope, and the top five combined account for 5,183 records, or 72.7% of the total. This is not an evenly distributed field — a handful of established vaccine developers hold the large majority of the formulation claim space, while the remainder of the 100-company ranking thins out quickly, with tenth place holding only 78 records. Anyone entering this space should expect to file around, not into, the leading portfolios.
Filing activity peaked in 2017 at 226 published records and has declined since, with the most reliable comparison — 2021's 133 records against 2024's 98 — showing a 26% drop over three years. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the most recent years will look thinner than they eventually turn out to be. On the data available, the trend is a cooling from a mid-2010s high rather than a field in its early growth phase.
A61K, the medicinal-preparations IPC subclass, appears on 90.9% of the 7,134 records in scope, confirming that formulation is the field's core claim territory. C07K peptide and protein claims follow at 40.6%, and A61P therapeutic-activity claims at 40.5%, with C12N microorganism and genetic-engineering claims at 27.7% marking a secondary cluster tied to biologic antigen production. Because a single record can carry several IPC codes, these percentages add to more than 100% and should each be read against the full record count, not against one another.
Relative to the dense A61K formulation core, sub-areas such as dose-sparing microneedle delivery, receptor-agonist co-formulation with mRNA carriers, and reactogenicity-linked biomarker formulation claims show comparatively thinner coverage. These are not guaranteed to be open — they simply carry less claim density than the aluminium-salt and squalene-emulsion core — so a targeted freedom-to-operate search on the specific chemistry is still the necessary next step before drafting. The gap is most credible where a formulation combines an established adjuvant chemistry with a delivery or biomarker mechanism that has not itself been heavily claimed.
Citation counts in this corpus favour older filings simply because they have had more time to be cited by later applicants — the most-cited records here date back to filings from the late 1990s. That makes citation count a reasonable signal of foundational influence on the field, but a poor signal of which recent filings matter most competitively today. A newer filing with few citations can still be commercially significant; it just has not had time to accumulate the citation trail that older prior art has.
Research Vaccine Adjuvant Systems in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole vaccine adjuvant systems 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.