Yeast Chassis Promoter Engineering Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- Concentrated at the top. The five most active assignees together hold 33.3% of all 7,170 records in scope, and the leading filer alone accounts for 1,348 — but the ranking still runs 100 names deep, so a long tail of smaller filers sits behind them.
- Filings past their peak, publication still catching up. Annual filings peaked at 210 in 2018 and fell from 167 in 2021 to 115 in 2024, a 31% drop over that span; treat 2025-2026 counts as undercounted since publication lags filing by about 18 months.
- Therapeutic framing dominates the claim language. A61K medicinal-preparation classes touch 48.5% of records and C07K peptide/protein classes touch 65.3%, meaning most promoter-engineering claims are drafted inside a drug-development frame rather than a pure fermentation or bioproduction one.
Filing growth compares 2021 (167 records) with 2024 (115) — 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 7,170 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks 7,170 patent records filed against yeast host cells, engineered or recombinant yeast, and the promoter-level control elements used to tune expression: inducible and constitutive promoter designs, operator sequences, mutations that shift transcription strength, and the reporter assays used to measure them. The scope is bounded by IPC classes covering genetic engineering constructs (C12N15/81), microorganism cultures (C12N1/16) and enzymatic or nucleic-acid measurement methods (C12Q1/68), so it captures both the construct claims and the assay methods used to validate them.
Coverage runs from 2015 through the mid-2026 data cut-off, with the most recent one to two years understated because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months. Family-level counting is used throughout so that continuation filings and multi-jurisdiction copies of the same invention are not double-counted as separate technologies.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 7,170-record set: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filings rose to a 2018 peak, then eased back
Annual filings climbed from 121 in 2017 to a peak of 210 in 2018, then declined toward 115 by 2024 — a 31% drop from the 2021 level of 167. The 2025 and 2026 figures in the raw count are lower still, but that reflects publication lag rather than a real collapse in filing activity; readers should not treat the tail of the chart as the current run rate.
C12N dominates; therapeutic classes are heavily represented
C12N (microorganisms and genetic engineering) appears on 91.3% of the 7,170 records, confirming this is fundamentally a genetic-construct dataset. But C07K (peptides and proteins, 65.3%), A61K (medicinal preparations, 48.5%) and A61P (therapeutic activity, 27.5%) all show up on a majority or near-majority of records, which means most promoter-engineering claims are being drafted to support a therapeutic protein or biologic product rather than an industrial fermentation strain.
Shares are the percentage of the 7,170 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Yeast Chassis Promoter Engineering with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about yeast chassis promoter engineering and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative filing and the most-cited prior art
US20220002661A1 — Modulation of formate oxidation by recombinant yeast host cell during fermentation
The disclosure concerns recombinant yeast host cells carrying a first genetic modification that increases formate production relative to a corresponding native yeast host cell, paired with a source of formate dehydrogenase activity. That source can be internal to the engineered strain or supplied externally to the fermentation.Filed by Danstar Ferment AG, published 2022-01-06.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO1995022625A1 | DNA mutagenesis by random fragmentation and reassembly | 4,100 |
| 2 | US5811238A | Methods for generating polynucleotides having desired characteristics by iterative selection and recombination | 3,258 |
| 3 | US5830721A | DNA mutagenesis by random fragmentation and reassembly | 2,982 |
| 4 | US20050123546A1 | Antigen binding molecules with increased Fc receptor binding affinity and effector function | 2,850 |
| 5 | WO1998027230A1 | Methods and compositions for polypeptide engineering | 1,315 |
| 6 | US5925523A | Intraction trap assay, reagents and uses thereof | 1,143 |
| 7 | WO1995019431A1 | Zinc finger protein derivatives and methods therefor | 1,119 |
| 8 | WO1997020078A1 | Methods for generating polynucleotides having desired characteristics by iterative selection and recombination | 1,098 |
| 9 | WO1998054311A1 | Zinc finger protein derivatives and methods therefor | 1,077 |
| 10 | US6200759B1 | Interaction trap assay, reagents and uses thereof | 1,069 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside this corpus — read them as a signal of influence on the field, not as a ranking of current importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three read-throughs from the concentration, trend and classification data above.
Leadership is concentrated but not closed
The top five assignees combined hold 33.3% of all 7,170 records, and the leading single assignee holds 1,348 on its own. That leaves two-thirds of the field spread across a ranked list of 100 companies, including many single- or few-filing entrants — a sign that promoter-engineering claim space is dominated at the core but still accessible at the edges.
Activity has cooled from its 2018 peak
Filings peaked at 210 in 2018 and fell to 115 by 2024, a 31% decline from the 2021 level of 167. That is the most recent period that can be read reliably; 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in due to publication lag and should not be read as a continuation of the decline.
Therapeutic framing, not just strain engineering
Beyond the 91.3% baseline in C12N, a majority of records also carry C07K (65.3%) or A61K (48.5%) classification. Promoter and operator claims in this dataset are overwhelmingly drafted in service of producing a therapeutic protein or biologic, which shapes how broadly a pure fermentation-strain claim can be drafted without running into that prior art.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to yeast chassis promoter engineering, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked assignee list runs 100 entries deep; a small number of names anchor the field and a long tail files occasionally or once.
One filer sets the scale for the field
The leading assignee's 1,348 records are more than the combined total of the next four ranked assignees. Its filing pattern, concentrated in early-era construct and screening patents, still anchors much of the prior art that later filers have to work around.
A steep drop after the leaders
Record counts fall from 182 at fifth place to 97 at tenth, and the top ten combined still only reach 42.6% of all 7,170 records. That gap between the leader and the rest suggests freedom to operate improves quickly once you move past the first handful of names.
Filing is mostly solo, not joint
Only ten co-assignee pairings appear in the data, and the strongest pairs link named individual inventors to their affiliated corporate assignee rather than showing cross-company joint ventures. That points to a field where IP is built in-house rather than through broad co-filing partnerships.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Human Genome Sciences, Inc. | 0 | — |
| RUBEN STEVEN M | 0 | — |
| ROSEN CRAIG A | 0 | — |
| BARASH STEVEN C | 0 | — |
| Genentech, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Bristol-Myers Squibb Company | 0 | — |
| Lonza AG | 0 | — |
| Incyte Corporation | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The landscape data points to three practical next steps for a team evaluating this space.
Map claims against the under-claimed branches
The gate chips above point to fermentation-only and industrial-strain promoter work that sits outside the therapeutic-heavy core of this dataset. A focused claim there is less likely to collide with the leading assignee's early filings.
Explore white space in EurekaWatch the 2021-2024 filing decline for a turn
A 31% drop over the last complete comparison window could mean consolidation around fewer, broader filings rather than reduced interest. Tracking 2025-2026 publications as they land will clarify which it is.
Track filing trends in EurekaCheck freedom to operate past the top ten
With the top ten assignees holding 42.6% of records, the remaining fields is fragmented across many smaller filers. A targeted clearance search on the specific promoter or operator sequence is more useful here than a broad landscape read.
Run a clearance search in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The dataset's ranked assignee list identifies a single leading filer with 1,348 records, well ahead of the rest of the field. The top five assignees together hold 33.3% of all 7,170 records in scope, but the ranking runs 100 names deep, so the majority of records sit outside that top group. Anyone assessing freedom to operate should look at the leader's portfolio specifically rather than treating the field as evenly distributed.
Filings peaked at 210 in 2018 and have declined since, falling from 167 in 2021 to 115 in 2024 — a 31% drop over that span. That is the most recent period that can be read reliably, because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months and the 2025-2026 figures are still incomplete. It would be a mistake to call the field dead on the strength of the most recent one or two years alone.
This landscape was built around three IPC classes: C12N15/81 for genetic engineering constructs, C12N1/16 for microorganism and yeast cultures, and C12Q1/68 for enzymatic and nucleic-acid measurement methods including reporter assays. Within the resulting record set, C12N subclasses appear on 91.3% of records, and C07K peptide/protein classes appear on 65.3%, showing the field leans heavily toward protein-production applications rather than pure strain engineering.
Nearly half of the 7,170 records in scope (48.5%) also carry A61K medicinal-preparation classification, and 27.5% carry A61P therapeutic-activity classification. That pattern reflects how promoter and operator engineering in yeast is most commonly used commercially: to drive expression of a therapeutic protein or biologic rather than an industrial enzyme or chemical. A filer targeting purely industrial fermentation should expect lighter prior art density but also a smaller pool of directly comparable claims to build on.
The classification data shows industrial and fermentation-only promoter work is comparatively under-represented next to the therapeutic-heavy core of this dataset, particularly for constitutive promoter mutants aimed at metabolite over-production and operator-sequence variants for non-therapeutic strains. Reporter-assay methods that are not tied to a specific product class also show lighter density. These are not guarantees of allowability, but they are areas where the leading assignees' portfolios are less concentrated.
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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.