How Many Patents Does a Biopharmaceutical Company Need?

In order to help reduce drug prices, governments in countries such as India are devising policies to help local biotech companies. These companies are also initiating original drug discovery programmes. How much should these governments and companies be concerned about patents? We have undertaken a quantitative analysis of the US patents of 59 young therapeutics-focused biotech companies, almost all of which are based in the United States. Although several companies have hundreds of patents, most have less than 30. It is likely that many of these patents are not maintained and only some are core to the company's success. The number of patents critical to drug development is therefore smaller than it might appear. The relationships between the number of patents, the age of company and the number of products (approved or in phase III clinical development) have also been quantitatively examined