Biotech innovation is at the cutting edge of life itself, as thousands of young companies harness the power of biological systems and living organisms to drive groundbreaking products and services across healthcare, pharmaceuticals, environmental technologies, and industrial applications.
LexisNexis® Intellectual Property Solutions conducted an analysis to identify the world’s ten most innovative biotech startups. This is based on each company’s LexisNexis® PatentSight+™ Patent Asset Index, a proprietary metric that reflects the strength of a company’s patent portfolio. It does this by combining the size of the portfolio with the technological value and the geographic scope of each of its patent-protected inventions. The analysis identified ten startups in the biotechnology space whose patent portfolios have the highest values, providing an objective view of which startups are leading innovation across the biotechnology sector.
“The world’s most innovative biotech startups walk the line between science and science fiction, as they unravel the secrets of our genetic code, create miraculous cures for intractable diseases, design and power new foods for humanity, and invent new bioalternatives to key materials and products,” said Marco Richter, Senior Director of IP Analytics and Strategy for LexisNexis Intellectual Property Solutions. “These startups are driving some of the most transformative innovations of our time, and their patent portfolios offer a unique window into the strength and direction of that innovation. Using the Patent Asset Index, we can objectively identify the companies that have built the patent assets that will be the foundation for future generations of biotech entrepreneurs.”
The list of most innovative biotech startups was dominated by US companies, which included eight of the ten, four of which came from the Boston area, including Orna Therapeutics, ElevateBio, Manus, and Arbor Biotech.
Two additional companies on the list from the San Francisco area (Mammoth Biosciences and Pivot Bio), while Raleigh-Durham (Pairwise) and Chicago (Nature’s Fynd) each had one company on the list. The only non-US companies to make the top ten were China’s Abogen Biosciences and Hangzhou DAC.
Orna TherapeuticsOrna Therapeutics is dedicated to designing and delivering a new class of fully engineered circular RNA (oRNA®) therapeutics to unlock the potential of RNA medicine to treat diseases anywhere in the body. Orna’s oRNA transcripts have advantages over traditional mRNA approaches, including simplified production, improved formulation into lipid nanoparticles, and superior protein expression. Its industry-leading LNP-based delivery systems and comprehensive editing programs position Orna to advance novel RNA medicines with vast potential to transform patient care.
Mammoth BiosciencesMammoth Biosciences is a biotechnology company focused on leveraging its proprietary ultracompact CRISPR systems to develop potential long-term curative therapies for patients with life-threatening and debilitating diseases. Founded by CRISPR pioneer and Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna and Trevor Martin, Janice Chen, and Lucas Harrington, the company’s ultracompact systems are designed to be more specific and enable in vivo gene editing in difficult to reach tissues utilizing both nuclease applications and new editing modalities beyond double stranded breaks, including base editing, reverse transcriptase editing, and epigenetic editing.
PairwisePairwise is agriculture’s leading gene editing powerhouse, building a healthier world through partnership and plant innovation. Co-founded by the inventors of CRISPR, our Fulcrum™ Platform accelerates the development of climate-resilient, nutritious, and sustainable crops. As trusted partners to global industry leaders and nonprofit institutions, we help breeders move faster while transforming food and agriculture for farmers, consumers, and the planet.
ElevateBioElevateBio is a technology-driven company built to power transformative genetic medicines today and for many decades to come. The company commercializes its enabling technologies, manufacturing capabilities, and industry-leading expertise through partnerships to accelerate development across a breadth of therapeutic approaches and modalities. The ElevateBio ecosystem combines Life Edit, its gene editing and R&D technology business, with BaseCamp®, its end-to-end genetic medicine process development and cGMP manufacturing business, to accelerate the discovery and development of advanced therapeutics.
Hangzhou DACHangzhou DAC is a clinical stage biotech company specializing in developing breakthrough ADC therapies. The company has established an end-to-end ADC drug development platform with the capacity of discovery, development, and GMP production, and it has built a rich product pipeline of more than 40 ADC drugs, six of which are under clinical development. Hangzhou DAC holds nearly 30 PCT patents and has filed over 600 patent applications worldwide. Leveraging its proprietary ADC platform, the company has established broad collaborations with multiple international pharmaceutical companies, including Johnson & Johnson.
ManusManus is the world’s leading bioalternatives scale-up platform, focused on accelerating the commercialization of biologically produced alternatives across food ingredients, agricultural inputs, and industrial materials. With a proven track record in taking products from concept to large-scale manufacturing, Manus is proud to contribute to the next chapter of U.S. industrial biotechnology. In April 2025, Manus completed a strategic merger with Inscripta, a life science technology company specializing in genome engineering.
Pivot BioPivot Bio, one of the world’s leading innovative agtech companies, delivers to farmers patented crop nutrition technologies that harness the power of nature to reliably and productively grow the food the world needs in the face of increasing volatility. Currently available in North America and soon in Brazil, the company’s products are a breakthrough innovation and one of the agriculture industry’s most promising solutions.
Abogen BiosciencesAbogen Biosciences is an innovative biopharmaceutical company focused on messenger RNA (mRNA) drug development. The company has established its own industry-leading proprietary mRNA platform and nanoparticle delivery system and is one of the few mRNA drug R&D enterprises in China with complete capabilities across mRNA value chain, covering all aspects from mRNA design, formulation development to large-scale manufacturing. The company has established a diversified product pipeline, with products ranging from infectious disease prevention and control, tumor immunology to protein replacement therapies.
Arbor BiotechArbor Biotech, a clinical stage, next-generation gene editing company based in Cambridge, MA, is advancing a pipeline of novel gene editing therapeutics to address a wide range of genetic conditions—from the ultra-rare to the most common genetic diseases. The company’s unique suite of optimized gene editors, capable of gene knockout, excisions, reverse transcriptase editing, and large gene insertions, goes beyond the limitations of early editing technologies to unlock new targets and fuel a robust pipeline of first-in-class assets focused on diseases of high unmet need.
Nature’s FyndNature’s Fynd (Fynder’s Fund) is a Chicago-based food company creating a versatile alternative protein to nourish the world’s growing population while nurturing the planet. Born out of research conducted for NASA on microbes with origins in Yellowstone National Park, the company’s breakthrough fermentation technology grows Fy™. Fy is a new-to-the-world nutritional fungi protein that’s the main ingredient in their Meatless Fy Breakfast Patties and Dairy-Free Fy Yogurt that are in grocery stores nationally.
LexisNexis Intellectual Property Solutions conducted an analysis of global biotech startup companies using its LexisNexis PatentSight+ business intelligence platform to assess the strength and quality of their patent assets, as measured by the Patent Asset Index. The analysis focused on companies in three key areas of biotechnology—health and medicine (red biotech), industrial applications (white biotech), and agriculture (green biotech).
Leading biotech startup companies were identified for inclusion in the analysis from the Crunchbase database of 38,665 private, active, for-profit biotech companies. Additional companies for consideration were identified from the 341,454 companies tagged as having biotech patents within the LexisNexis database. Public companies and their subsidiaries, governments and government-controlled entities, and academic institutions did not qualify for inclusion. Startup companies were further defined as companies founded within the last 15 years.
The Innovation Momentum 2025: The Global Top 100 report celebrates the top 100 companies that are breaking boundaries and setting new benchmarks in technology and industry through visionary advancements.
