Yeast Chassis Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- Concentrated at the top. The five leading assignees hold 52.2% of all 2,365 records in scope, and the leading ten hold 59.2% — a field with a dominant core and a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants.
- Filing is still climbing, not cooling. Annual filings rose from 28 in 2021 to 51 in 2024, an 82% increase over that span; 2025-2026 counts look lower only because publication lags filing by around 18 months.
- Claims cluster around microorganism engineering and fermentation. C12N and C12P together touch the majority of records, while therapeutic-activity framing (A61P) appears in under 10% of records — a narrower, less-crowded angle for new filings.
Filing growth compares 2021 (28 records) with 2024 (51) — 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 2,365 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the yeast chassis patent record actually shows
Engineered yeast host strains sit at the intersection of genetic construct design, fermentation process control and metabolite output, and the patent record reflects all three. Filings under this search span 2,365 records filed or published between 2015 and the current data cut-off, with the bulk of technical activity landing in microorganism engineering and enzymatic fermentation classes rather than in downstream therapeutic claims. The assignee base is a mix of large industrial and life-sciences filers alongside university and individual inventors, and the concentration figures show a market where a handful of players have built deep filing positions while most others hold a single record or a small cluster.
Reading the trend line requires one caveat: publication typically lags filing by about 18 months, so the most recent one to two years in any chart will always look thinner than the activity that eventually gets recorded. Treat the 2024 figure as the most recent complete signal, and treat 2025-2026 as a floor, not a ceiling.
Filing trend and technology composition
The volume trend and the IPC breakdown together show where claim density sits today and how fast the field has been adding new filings.
A field still building momentum
Annual filings grew from 56 in 2017 to a peak of 70 in 2023, and the 2021-to-2024 window alone shows an 82% increase (28 to 51 filings). The apparent drop-off into 2025 and 2026 is a publication-lag artefact, not a real slowdown signal.
Where the claims concentrate
C12N (microorganisms and genetic engineering) touches 59.7% of the 2,365 records in scope and C07K (peptides and proteins) touches 49.5%, confirming that most filings are construct- and organism-level rather than end-application claims. A61P (therapeutic activity), at 9.6%, marks one of the thinner, more open branches.
Shares are the percentage of the 2,365 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
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US20160340698A1 — Engineered yeast cell with increased NADPH production
Provided is a genetically engineered yeast cell having increased NADPH production, a method of increasing a NADPH level in a yeast cell, a method of preparing the genetically engineered yeast cell, and a method of producing lactate using yeast cell.Filed by Samsung Electronics, 2016-11-24 — illustrative of how redox-cofactor engineering claims are drafted alongside a specific downstream metabolite (lactate).
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO1994000569A1 | Methods for producing transgenic non-human animals harboring a yeast artificial chromosome | 939 |
| 2 | US4931373A | Stable DNA constructs for expression of alpha -1 antitrypsin | 832 |
| 3 | US5643763A | Method for making recombinant yeast artificial chromosomes by minimizing diploid doubling during mating | 813 |
| 4 | WO1996014436A1 | Method for making recombinant yeast artificial chromosomes | 577 |
| 5 | US5981175A | Methods for producing recombinant mammalian cells harboring a yeast artificial chromosome | 476 |
| 6 | WO2005074524A2 | Modified human interferon polypeptides and their uses | 427 |
| 7 | US5525490A | Reverse two-hybrid method | 425 |
| 8 | WO2006069246A2 | Compositions containing, methods involving, and uses of non-natural amino acids and polypeptides | 302 |
| 9 | WO2008121563A2 | Modified FGF-21 polypeptides and their uses | 280 |
| 10 | US20060019347A1 | Biosynthetic polypeptides utilizing non-naturally encoded amino acids | 243 |
Citation counts favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations inside this corpus; treat them as markers of influence on the field's technical vocabulary, not as evidence of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once concentration, trend and class data are read together: an entrenched leadership tier, sustained filing growth that the 2025-2026 numbers understate, and IPC classes that are far from evenly claimed.
A dominant core, then a long tail
The leading assignee alone accounts for 977 records, and the top five combined hold 52.2% of all records in scope. Below tenth place, filing counts drop sharply, meaning most organisations in this field hold only a handful of families.
Filing activity is still rising
Annual filings climbed from 28 in 2021 to 51 in 2024. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the softer-looking 2025 and 2026 counts are provisional, not a real contraction.
Construct and organism claims dominate
C12N and C07K together are the two most-touched classes, showing that most filings are about the host cell and its expressed proteins rather than a specific therapeutic end-use. A61P, the therapeutic-activity class, sits under 10% of records.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to yeast chassis patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and how contested each niche is
The assignee ranking mixes large industrial and pharma filers with academic institutions and a small number of prolific individual inventors. Recent-year momentum data shows even the largest filers slowing to zero or near-zero new records in the latest year, consistent with the publication-lag effect rather than an active pullback.
One filer sets the density floor
The leading assignee's filing count is more than four times the fifth-place total (48), signalling a strain-engineering platform built through sustained, repeated filing rather than a single breakthrough patent.
Co-filing is limited and concentrated
Only ten co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest pairings link a small number of the same organisations repeatedly, pointing to a handful of established commercial or research partnerships rather than a broad collaborative network.
Latest-year counts understate real activity
Several of the most active historical filers show zero or near-zero records in the latest year. Given the roughly 18-month publication lag, this reflects filings still working through the pipeline rather than firms exiting the space.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Cargill Inc | 1 | -91% |
| Ambrx Inc | 0 | — |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Eli Lilly and Company | 0 | — |
| The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University | 0 | — |
| MIAO ZHENWEI | 0 | — |
| Elanco US Inc | 0 | — |
| Yeda Research and Development Co Ltd | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field with an entrenched leadership tier, real but understated growth, and specific IPC branches that remain lightly claimed. The next step is turning that into a filing or freedom-to-operate position.
Map claims against the leader tier
Before drafting new construct claims, check how the top assignees have built their filing density — repeated narrow claims versus broad platform claims change how a new filing should be scoped.
Explore assignee claim maps in EurekaTest the under-claimed branches
Redox-balancing constructs and non-lactate metabolite pathways show thinner density than core C12N filings. A targeted search can confirm whether that reflects genuine white space or simply narrower search terms.
Run a white-space search in EurekaQuestions practitioners ask about yeast chassis patents
Filing activity in this dataset is concentrated at the top: the leading assignee holds 977 of the 2,365 records in scope, and the five leading assignees combined hold 52.2% of all records. Below the tenth-ranked assignee, filing counts fall off sharply, meaning most organisations named in the ranking hold only a small number of records. This pattern is typical of a field built around a small set of platform strain technologies rather than many equally sized competitors.
Filings grew from 28 in 2021 to 51 in 2024, an 82% increase over that three-year span, with a peak of 70 filings in 2023. The lower counts visible in 2025 and 2026 are not evidence of a slowdown — publication typically lags actual filing by roughly 18 months, so recent years are still filling in and should be read as a floor rather than a final figure.
Microorganism and genetic engineering claims (IPC class C12N) appear in 59.7% of the 2,365 records in scope, and peptide and protein claims (C07K) appear in 49.5%, making these the two most contested areas. Fermentation and enzymatic synthesis (C12P) and medicinal preparations (A61K) also carry substantial shares. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100%, which is expected and reflects how broadly drafted many filings are.
The IPC composition data shows several branches with meaningfully lower filing density than the core microorganism and fermentation classes, including therapeutic-activity applications of engineered yeast (A61P, 9.6% of records), enzyme- and DNA-based measuring or testing methods (C12Q, 14.0%), and sugar or nucleic-acid substrate engineering (C07H, 14.2%). Lower density in a class does not guarantee an easy filing, but it does suggest these areas have not been claimed as exhaustively as the dominant construct and fermentation classes.
This filing, from Samsung Electronics, claims a genetically engineered yeast cell with increased NADPH production along with methods for preparing that cell and using it to produce lactate. Anyone engineering a yeast host strain around redox cofactor levels for a similar downstream metabolite should review its specific claim language for method and construct overlap. It is one of the representative filings in this space rather than the single most-cited one, so a full freedom-to-operate review should also check the older, more heavily cited yeast artificial chromosome patents in this dataset.
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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.