An article titled ‘The Global Chimeric Antigen Receptor T (CAR-T) Cell Therapy Patent Landscape’, written by faculty members and students in the Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences (ICMS), University of Macau (UM), was recently published in Nature Biotechnology. The paper analyses patent-related activities in the CAR-T field through data mining and network analysis, which will have significant implications for researchers, investors, and governments.
Nature Biotechnology is one of the most authoritative academic journals in the field of biomedical sciences. The journal mainly publishes the latest discoveries in the field as well as commercial, political, and legal information that would have an impact on the field.
CAR-T therapy is a revolutionary therapeutic method to treat cancer and has attracted international attention. So far, two therapies have been approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration and have led to hundreds of ongoing clinical trials that involve more than 10,000 patents. By using patent as an indicator, this study snapshotted several ‘aerial pictures’ from the angle of time evolution, technology clusters, organisational ecology, and regional collaboration to map the global landscape of CAR-T therapy in the future. The open innovation model established in the CAR-T field is worth studying as it has significant implications for the commercialisation of research results.
The study was jointly conducted by faculty members and students in the ICMS and the State Key Laboratory of Quality Research of Chinese Medicine. They are master’s students of medicinal administration Lyu Liyang and Feng Ye, as well as Distinguished Professor Chen Xin and Associate Professor Hu Yuanjia (corresponding author). Prof Hu obtained a PhD degree from UM in 2009. His supervisor was Chair Professor Wang Yitao. Prof Hu has been studying medical patents and complex system analysis for more than a decade and has published articles on artemisinin patents, pharmaceutical patent term extension, and patent transformation and valuation in top international and national journals, including China Reform.
The study used data service from the UM library and was funded by UM (file number: MYRG2019-00011-ICMS). The full version of the paper is available at: https://rdcu.be/cbFlW.
