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Biotech patents—business as usual?

Nature Biotechnology volume 26, page 1326 (2008)Cite this article

An Erratum to this article was published on 01 May 2009

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Patenting of biotech inventions in 2007 remained steady, but below the highs of 2002. Last year, Genentech (So. San Francisco, CA, USA) was issued the highest number of new patents, overtaking the University of California system. The University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI, USA), Immunex (Seattle), Roche Diagnostics (Basel), Schering (Kenilworth, NJ, USA) and Syngenta (Basel) all entered the top 20. Patents in cardiovascular disease and oncology continued to dominate. Obtaining a patent in Europe remains more costly than elsewhere.

Patent share for biotech and pharmaceutical terms

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Change history

  • 08 May 2009

    In the version of this article initially published, the Table listing the top 20 organizations with the most US biotech patents issued in 2007 is incorrect. Pioneer Hi-Bred should be listed in 3rd place, with 123 patents. The error has been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

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  1. Stacy Lawrence is a Senior Writer at BioCentury,

    Stacy Lawrence

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  1. Stacy Lawrence
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Lawrence, S. Biotech patents—business as usual?. Nat Biotechnol 26, 1326 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt1208-1326

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