Assignee Country Analysis

A synthetic biology perspective

This section of the report provides resident country figures for each EPO publication based on the assignee country. The data has been standardised to ensure that a specific country is only counted once when either using INPADOC patent family or single EPO publication counts. The patent assignee can be an organisation(s) and/or individual(s) that have an ownership interest in the legal rights a patent offers. Data is based on the EPO SynBio applications identified during this study, focusing on A1 & A2 kind codes. In a previous repot, supplementary evidence was submitted to the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee which can also be reviewed here.

Assignee country totals

The assignees/applicants of patent families are assigned a country code. This is typically determined by the country of the assignee address organisation(s) involved. The overall totals of the top 20 assignee countries since 2015 are disclosed in figure 1. The totals indicate the number of publications with at least one specific country resident.

In figure 1, the UK is now ranked 7th as a SynBio assignee country. The United States is well positioned as leading country for SynBio innovation. The new dataset captures a broader perspective of SynBio technology and the UK may have reduced it’s ranking from 5th to 7th due to other countries being more active across the 60 topics identified.

The publication trends of the top 20 synthetic biology assignee countries are investigated in figure 2, based on published EP applications during 2015-2024. For each applicant country, the EPO SynBio applications are counted by their specific publication date. The analysis by earliest publication date across patent families was deemed insufficient.

In figure 2, the top 10 fastest growing assignee countries based on compound annual growth rates from 2016-2024 are: 1. China (29.9%), 2. United Kingdom (25.7%), 3. Korea (Republic of) 21.7%, 4. Israel (17.3%), 5. United States (16.2%), 6. Belgium (14.7%), 7. Spain (13.7%), 8. Canada (13.3%), 9. Sweden (12.9%) and 10. Australia (12.4%).

Whilst the UK has now dropped down two rankings to 7th place based on overall number of publications. The UK is one of the fastest growing territories for SynBio innovation. During 2024 there were 686 publications assigned to UK assignees which is comparable with Korea – 741, Switzerland – 694 & France 698. Earlier in the last decade the UK was making slower progress but there is now evidence the United Kingdom is making fast progress in the SynBio field and keeping pace with leading territories. Especially when compared with Germany (7.1%) and France (6.9%) ranked 19th & 20th respectively for growth rates.

UK top 5 ranking analysis

The United Kingdom is ranked 7th overall for assignee country, however this ranking was further investigated across the 60 topics identified during this study. The top 5 assignee country rankings for the top 30 topics (ranked 1-30) are shown in figure 3 and topics ranked 31-60 in figure 4.

In figure 3, the UK is a top 5 assignee country for a number of therapeutic related topics such as fusion proteins, gene therapy, immunotherapy, neurodegenerative related conditions, pharma compounds, vaccines and virus and bacteriophage related innovation. This analysis highlights the UK as a leading territory for therapeutic related research and development by both the university and private company sectors.

The therapeutic focused theme continues in figure 4 supported by top 5 ranking for the UK as assignee country for the chimeric antigen receptors, coronavirus vaccines and viral cancer therapies topics. There is also an impressive focus on AI & machine learning and molecular design and biostatistics such as drug discovery and the functional genomics or proteomics topic. Genetic engineering is represented by topics such as Adeno-Associated virus, engineered immune cells and transgenic animals. The UK also has expertise in the Bioreactors topic and a growing presence in the bioremediation and gaseous capture topic.