Panorama of China's Pharmaceutical Patents in the First Half of 2025: What Innovation Secrets Lie Behind the Leading Medical Devices?

1. Overview of Patent Authorization Data
　　In the first half of 2025, the National Intellectual Property Office announced 78,704 authorized patents in the pharmaceutical field, a year-on-year decrease of 18.91%. In terms of patent types, inventions accounted for 49.12%, and utility models accounted for 43.53%, reflecting that while the industry focuses on high-level technological innovation, a large number of applied technological achievements continue to emerge.
　　As shown in Figure 1 (only the top ten provinces in patent authorization are displayed), the distribution of pharmaceutical patent authorizations across provinces in the first half of 2025 shows a clear imbalance.
　　Guangdong Province leads with 11,733 applications, demonstrating strong pharmaceutical innovation vitality, closely related to its complete biopharmaceutical industry chain, abundant industrial resources, and favorable policy support environment. Jiangsu Province ranks second with 8,066 applications, continuously advancing pharmaceutical innovation based on its industrial foundation and research strength in the biopharmaceutical field. Zhejiang Province ranks third with 6,250 applications, also showing outstanding performance in pharmaceutical innovation, reflecting the region's active stance in pharmaceutical industry development.
　　At the other end of the regional hierarchy, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan only obtained 99 patent applications, Tibet Autonomous Region 47, and Qinghai Province 92, showing a huge gap compared to leading provinces. This significant regional disparity may be related to factors such as the pharmaceutical industry foundation, innovation investment, and policy support in each area.

2. Distribution Characteristics of Technology Types
　　In the first half of 2025, pharmaceutical patent authorizations continued the characteristic of "medical devices leading, drug research and development differentiating," with the proportion and performance of various technology types.

　　Drug delivery devices: Leading the list with 21,005 authorizations, occupying a core position among technology types. Ultrasound probes, diagnostic equipment, and vascular interventional devices are showing a trend of dense patent layout. The explosive growth in this field is mainly driven by the surge in chronic disease screening market demand in an aging society and technological innovation.
　　Diagnostics, analytical testing, and preparation methods rank second and third: Under the promotion of precision medicine policies and AI technology empowerment, in the diagnostics and analytical testing field, POCT technology, with its rapid and portable features, combined with AI algorithms to achieve multi-indicator simultaneous detection and intelligent analysis, and multimodal molecular diagnostics, integrating multi-omics data to build precise models, have become core growth points; in the preparation methods field, patents focusing on process optimization for targeted delivery and controlled release of nano drug delivery systems stand out, jointly promoting medical technology upgrades toward precision and efficiency.
　　The biopharmaceutical field reached 4,224 authorizations. With global population aging and changes in disease spectrum, patents mainly focus on gene therapy, cell therapy, mRNA technology, and antibody drugs. The focus is on improving editing accuracy and reducing off-target effects, while exploring more possibilities in rare diseases, tumors, and autoimmune disease treatments.
　　Other technology types: Biotechnology, compositions, pharmaceutical intermediates, compounds, and other fields have relatively fewer authorizations.

3. Characteristics of Patent Holders
　　In the first half of 2025, the top 20 patent holders in the pharmaceutical field showed a pattern of "university-led, diverse participation."

Universities occupy a core position: Zhejiang University, Jilin University, Sichuan University, and other universities ranked among the top, with Zhejiang University leading by a significant margin, highlighting the key role of universities in basic research and technology transfer. These universities focus their research on cutting-edge fields such as drug synthesis, genetic engineering, and biopharmaceuticals, and the deepening of industry-academia-research cooperation accelerates the transformation of scientific research achievements into patents.
　　Medical institutions and enterprises collaborate: Medical institutions such as the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, and enterprises such as Hunan Huaxin Medical Devices Co., Ltd. and Shenzhen Keman Medical Equipment Co., Ltd. entered the mid-tier of the list. Patents from medical institutions mainly focus on applied innovations such as clinical instruments and diagnostic technologies, while enterprises actively layout in fields like smart medical devices and new surgical instruments, reflecting the driving role of the "medical-engineering integration" model in patent output.
　　Regional distribution matches industrial layout: The listed universities and enterprises are mainly distributed in the Yangtze River Delta, central, and northeast regions, echoing the dense layout of the biopharmaceutical industry in these areas, reflecting the important influence of regional resource endowment on innovation output.