Synthetic Biology: Publication Trends

Overview

A recent article in nature communications highlighted that synthetic biology related products are now widely infiltrating society with widespread market penetration expected to occur by 2030. Some higher profile recent technologies include isolated and purified chemicals produced by engineered cells or enzymes. Engineered cells themselves such as engineered bacteria, CAR-T cell therapy and genome edited products. Innovations in metabolic & automated strain engineering, directed evolution (2018 Nobel Prize), gene circuit design, metagenomic discovery and genome editing (2020 Nobel Prize) have enabled the development of these technologies.

The patent publication trends for SynBio EP A1 & A2 specifications reveal an increasing trendline reflecting the speed of innovation within the synthetic biology field when using patent data as a proxy for innovation.

An early initial spike occurred due to a relative outlier publication year for divisionals accounting for 44% of the publications in 2011. During the last 10 publication years (2014-2023) the growth in published EPO synthetic biology patent filings is accelerating with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.7%. Reflecting a relatively strong average growth rate at the EPO during this period.

Publication dates are used as an indicator of demand. Patent publication data looks forward, for example, peaks and troughs reflect changes in underlying filing activity from the years prior. Recent publication figures can be impacted by the potential for 18 month publication delays, see limitations section for further information.

The INPADOC based legal status information for the synthetic biology patents published during 2014-2023 have been aggregated in figure .2.

The elevated CAGR of 8.5% is reflected in the legal status stats. The proportion of alive patents is 75% which reflects the high growth rate during this period as patenting activity is increasing. Nearly 50% of the published filings during 2014-2023 are pending, with 26% being granted reflecting a field which is gaining momentum.