Next-Generation Therapeutics
Next-Generation Therapeutics: Technology Overview
For much of the pharmaceutical industry’s history, drug development focused on identifying a disease-relevant biological target and developing a molecule—often a small molecule, and increasingly a biologic—to modulate its activity. This approach has produced an enormous range of effective medicines, but many important biological mechanisms remain difficult or impossible to address through conventional modalities.
What has changed over the past decade is not simply that medicines have become better, but that they have become fundamentally different. A new generation of therapeutic modalities has reached the clinic and, in several cases, the market. Some instruct a patient’s own cells to produce therapeutic proteins. Some precisely edit the genome. Others deliver radioactive payloads to cancer cells or eliminate disease-causing proteins rather than merely blocking them.
We have defined seven therapeutic technologies that we consider representative of the next generation of medicines. Their patent landscapes are analysed to assess how rapidly they are developing, where innovation is concentrated, and which companies are building the strongest technological positions.
Patents provide an early signal of technological change, often years before new therapies reach the market. Patent activity can therefore reveal the growth trajectory of emerging technologies, while patent ownership and technological strength help identify the companies best positioned to lead and benefit from their expansion.
Explore the seven technologies below for a brief overview of their mechanisms, applications, and technological significance.
RNA Therapeutics
What it covers: mRNA vaccines and therapeutics, siRNA, antisense oligonucleotides, RNA editing and splice modulation.
RNA therapeutics deliver instructions rather than a conventional drug molecule. mRNA directs cells to produce a therapeutic protein, while siRNA and antisense approaches can silence the production of harmful proteins. The success of mRNA vaccines brought the technology into the spotlight, but the broader opportunity extends to chronic diseases, rare diseases and emerging approaches such as RNA editing, which can correct faulty messages without altering the genome.
Why it matters: RNA is a highly programmable therapeutic modality. Changing the target can often mean changing the sequence rather than redesigning an entirely new drug, potentially accelerating development and expanding the range of addressable diseases.
Genetic Medicines
What it covers: gene therapy and gene editing, including viral and non-viral delivery, CRISPR, base editing, prime editing and epigenetic editing.
Genetic medicines act closer to the underlying cause of disease. They can replace a missing gene, modify a defective sequence or regulate gene expression. The approval of the first CRISPR-based therapies in 2023 demonstrated that genome editing could become a clinical reality, while base and prime editing aim to achieve increasingly precise changes without the same type of DNA cutting used by earlier approaches.
Why it matters: genetic medicines offer the possibility of durable, potentially one-time treatments for diseases that previously required lifelong management. They also redefine the pharmaceutical product from a recurring dose to a potentially lasting genetic intervention.
Engineered Cell Therapies
What it covers: CAR-T and CAR-NK cells, TCR-T, tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes and iPSC-derived cell products.
Here, the drug is a living cell. Immune cells can be removed from a patient, engineered to recognise disease and returned as a personalised therapy. CAR-T has already produced remarkable results in blood cancers, while the field is expanding toward allogeneic and iPSC-derived cells that could be produced at scale, as well as applications in autoimmune disease.
Why it matters: engineered cells demonstrated that living cells themselves can be designed as medicines. Moving from individually manufactured therapies toward standardized, off-the-shelf products could substantially improve scalability and economics.
Bispecific and Multispecific Therapeutics
What it covers: antibodies and related molecules that bind two or more targets simultaneously, including T-cell engagers, NK-cell engagers and dual-checkpoint approaches.
Unlike conventional antibodies, bispecifics can connect two biological targets at once. A T-cell engager, for example, can bind a cancer cell with one arm and a T cell with the other, physically bringing the immune system to the tumour. This creates some of the functional advantages of cell therapy while remaining an off-the-shelf biological drug.
Why it matters: bispecifics combine a powerful new mechanism with the established manufacturing and distribution infrastructure of biologics. The technology is already well established in blood cancers and is expanding into solid tumours and other therapeutic areas.
Targeted Conjugates
What it covers: antibody-drug conjugates and related approaches, including peptide-drug, antibody-oligonucleotide, immune-stimulating and degrader conjugates.
Targeted conjugates combine a targeting molecule with a therapeutic payload. An antibody or other targeting component identifies the disease cell, while a linker controls delivery of the payload. Advances in targeting, linker chemistry and payload design are expanding the concept beyond conventional chemotherapy.
Why it matters: conjugates are among the most commercially validated next-generation modalities, with multiple blockbuster products and major pharmaceutical transactions. Their evolution could enable increasingly precise delivery of a growing range of therapeutic payloads.
Radioligand Therapy
What it covers: targeted radiopharmaceuticals in which therapeutic radioisotopes are attached to tumour-seeking molecules, together with the isotope production and supply infrastructure required to deliver them.
Radiotherapy has traditionally delivered radiation from outside the body. Radioligand therapy instead carries a radioactive payload directly to the tumour, using a small molecule or antibody to identify the target. The approval of targeted radioligand therapies for prostate cancer demonstrated the commercial potential of the approach.
Why it matters: radioligand therapy combines biology with a highly specialised physical supply chain. Radioisotope production, reactor access, processing and logistics can all become critical competitive factors, creating significant barriers to entry alongside the therapeutic technology itself.
Targeted Protein Degradation
What it covers: PROTACs, molecular glues and related protein degraders, including emerging degrader-conjugate approaches.
Conventional drugs typically work by binding to and inhibiting a protein. Targeted protein degraders take a different approach: they bring a disease-causing protein into contact with the cell’s own degradation machinery, causing the protein to be destroyed rather than simply blocked. This mechanism can potentially address proteins that lack the conventional binding pockets required by traditional drugs.
Why it matters: protein degradation could expand the universe of addressable biological targets rather than simply improving existing drugs. It is one of the youngest of these technologies and therefore particularly interesting from a technology-growth perspective, as the field moves from experimental platforms toward clinical and commercial validation.
Global trends: sharp rise in Next-Generation Therapeutics patents
Indexed global development of patents in Next-Generation Therapeutics compared to established Pharma and Biotech technologies
Active Patents in Next-Generation Therapeutics have more than tripled since 2015
The number of active patent family publications in the seven defined Next-Generation Therapeutics increased from around 21,000 in 2015 to almost 65,000 at the end of September 2026. As a result, patent growth has been more dynamic than in established pharma and biotech technologies.
Global development of patents in the seven Next-Generation Therapeutics
RNA Therapeutics is the largest patent area within Next-Generation Therapeutics
The number of active patent family publications in RNA Therapeutics increased from around 10,700 in 2015 to more than 30,000 in 2026. Other large areas are Engineered Cell Therapies and Genetic Medicines, both with more than 17,000 active patent family publications in 2026. The remaining four areas have smaller patent bases but are growing rapidly. The highest growth rate can be observed in Targeted Protein Degradation, where the number of patent family publications increased from just 45 in 2015 to more than 2,400 in 2026, equivalent to an annual growth rate of almost 44%.
Top research countries and companies in Next-Generation Therapeutics
Total Patents: Top 20 countries
Total Patents: Top 20 companies
The top 20 ranking includes both large diversified pharmaceutical companies and more specialised biotechnology players. Roche leads with 682 patents, well ahead of Sanofi with 426 and Novartis with 396. Bristol Myers Squibb, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and Ionis Pharmaceuticals also have sizeable portfolios. For investors, total patent volume provides an indication of the breadth of a company’s technological footprint, while the comparison with World-Class Patents helps distinguish broad patent activity from the strength of the underlying innovation.
World-Class Patents: Top 20 companies
World-Class Patents identify the top 10% of patents within each technology. The rating combines relevant international coverage, reflecting the applicant’s assessment of an invention’s commercial importance, with citations, reflecting its technological relevance. As a result, World-Class Patents are more useful than overall patent volumes for identifying the true innovation leaders.
Roche holds the largest number of World-Class Patents in Next-Generation Therapeutics, with 253 in 2026, followed by Moderna with 205 and Novartis with 182. Bristol Myers Squibb, Sanofi and Alnylam also have more than 130 World-Class Patents. The patent landscape also includes specialised biotechnology companies such as Ionis, Arvinas, Dyne and Voyager. For investors, World-Class Patents provide an indication of where companies have built strong technological positions in emerging therapeutic modalities, helping identify businesses with potentially valuable innovation assets beyond their current products and revenues.
Next-Generation Therapeutics: Transformative Score
The Transformative Score is a proprietary EconSight metric that assesses a company’s recent innovation strength. It combines indicators of patent dynamics and patent strength within Next-Generation Therapeutics to provide a forward-looking ranking of innovative companies.
The chart covers more than 500 listed companies active in Next-Generation Therapeutics. The Y-axis combines patent quality indicators, including the share and level of World-Class Patents, average patent quality and its development over the past five years. The X-axis measures patent quantity, combining the level of patent activity with its growth over the same period. Bubble size reflects each company’s degree of specialisation in Next-Generation Therapeutics.
Together, the two axes distinguish between the strength of an existing innovation position and its recent momentum. The three highlighted companies illustrate these different profiles.
Roche is the clear leader in total active patents and World-Class Patents in Next-Generation Therapeutics in 2026. It is also the only company with a substantial position across all seven technology areas. Its strongest position is in bispecific and multispecific therapeutics, complemented by strong portfolios in RNA therapeutics and targeted conjugates. However, when patent dynamics and specialisation are taken into account, Roche ranks 42nd among listed companies. This reflects the maturity and breadth of its portfolio rather than a lack of technological strength.
Moderna has a different profile and ranks among the top five on the Transformative Score. Its portfolio is highly concentrated in RNA therapeutics, resulting in one of the highest specialisation scores in the universe. Its research spans both RNA engineering and delivery technologies, with applications extending beyond vaccines into areas such as personalised cancer vaccines.
Dyne Therapeutics, also among the top five, shows how a smaller company can achieve a strong position through focused innovation. Its research centres on targeted delivery of oligonucleotide therapies to muscle tissue, placing it at the intersection of RNA therapeutics and targeted conjugates.
Roche represents the strongest established position, while Moderna and Dyne illustrate faster-moving innovation profiles. The Transformative Score captures both dimensions, providing a broader view of technological positioning than company size or patent volume alone.
