Biotech innovation spans a wide range of scientific and industrial applications. Analysis reveals innovative breakthroughs in gene editing, RNA therapeutics, agricultural trait development and alternative protein production. It is therefore crucial to take a closer look at the filing activity of key start-up companies. This provides insight into potential directions of development within the fast-moving biotech sector.
Biotechnology is reshaping the foundations of modern science and industry. At the heart of this transformation is a new generation of start-ups that are pushing the boundaries of molecular biology, genetics and bioengineering to create disruptive advances in medicine, agriculture and sustainable manufacturing.
To identify which of these companies are leading the charge, an extensive global analysis was conducted. The specific focus was on the strength and quality of private firms’ patent assets. The process began with a comprehensive data pull from Crunchbase, reviewing 38,665 private, active, and for-profit biotech companies. This was then supplemented with additional candidates drawn from more than 340,000 entities tagged as having biotech-related patents.
To account for long development cycles in this space, start-ups were defined in the analysis as companies founded within the last 15 years. Public organizations, subsidiaries of larger corporations, government-linked entities and academic institutions were excluded. This was to ensure that the list only reflected early-stage private ventures.
The evaluation of each start-up’s innovation strength was based on the LexisNexis® PatentSight+™ Patent Asset Index, which incorporates the size of a company’s patent portfolio alongside the technological relevance and geographic breadth of its protected inventions. For this analysis, only patents categorized under red, green, and white biotechnology were considered. This ensured a focused comparison across relevant biotech domains. This approach surfaces start-ups whose intellectual property positions them at the leading edge of biotech innovation.
This data-driven lens provides a more nuanced understanding of innovation leadership in a sector that is not only growing rapidly but diversifying across health, agriculture, and industrial applications. The Patent Asset Index highlights companies that are most likely to shape the biotech frontier.
Biotech innovation spans a wide range of scientific and industrial applications. The start-ups identified in this analysis are active in areas such as gene editing, RNA therapeutics, agricultural trait development, and alternative protein production, supported by patent portfolios in relevant tech fields.
These companies are developing tech platforms that enable genetic modification, disease targeting, and bio-based production processes. Their patent activity provides insight into potential directions of development within the biotech sector.
Eight of the 10 most innovative biotech start-ups are headquartered in the United States. Four of these—Orna Therapeutics, ElevateBio, Manus and Arbor Biotechnologies—hail from the Boston-Cambridge cluster. The San Francisco Bay Area is represented by Mammoth Biosciences and Pivot Bio. Raleigh-Durham’s Pairwise and Chicago-based Nature’s Fynd complete the US cohort. The only non-US companies to make the top 10 are China’s Abogen Biosciences and Hangzhou DAC.
A closer look at the patent data reveals striking differences in how these start-ups are building their patent strength.
Figure 2: Portfolio strength comparison of the start-ups
Orna Therapeutics stands apart with the highest average competitive impact and overall patent strength despite a relatively modest portfolio size. By contrast, Mammoth Biosciences leads in portfolio size and maintains substantial overall strength. Nature’s Fynd also stands out, pairing a small portfolio with exceptional patent quality. Several others, such as Abogen Biosciences, ElevateBio and Pivot Bio, demonstrate a balanced approach, combining solid portfolio volumes with above-average competitive impact. Hangzhou DAC and Arbor Biotech are positioned as efficient builders of IP strength. Manus appears to be scaling with a broader patent base. Together, these dynamics illustrate the diverse strategic paths that biotech start-ups are taking to secure competitive advantage through intellectual property.
The competitive impact metric includes how frequently a patent is cited by later patents, an established proxy for technological relevance. Citation counts are normalized by technology field, patent age and jurisdiction-specific citation behavors. This technology relevance score is then combined with geographic market coverage to capture the competitive impact of a patent family. The competitive impact of each patent family, multiplied by the number of active patents in a portfolio, contributes to a startup’s overall strength as expressed by the Patent Asset Index, a robust measure of innovation strength.
When assessing patent portfolios, it is essential not only to evaluate current strength but also to understand how these portfolios have developed over time. All companies in this ranking were founded in 2010 or later. Many remain in an aggressive growth phase. Analyzing patent filing activity by year offers key insights into their innovation trajectories and strategic maturation.
Figure 3. Portfolio size development by year (2010 to 2024)
Due to the typical 18-month publication delay for patent filings, data for 2024 is incomplete and may not reflect the full scope of activity.
Several start-ups show a clear upward trend in patent filings in recent years. This reflected sustained R&D activity and long-term investment in intellectual property. Orna Therapeutics, for example, began filing in 2020 and has steadily increased its activity through 2023. Mammoth Biosciences has followed a similar trajectory, with consistently high volumes since 2020. This includes 21 new filings in both 2022 and 2024. Pairwise and Arbor Biotech also accelerated filings starting in 2020, with Pairwise submitting more than 60 families between 2020 and 2024.
Manus and ElevateBio demonstrate longer-term consistency. Manus has filed steadily since 2015, peaking in 2021 and 2022, while ElevateBio has shown moderate but sustained growth since 2018. Abogen Biosciences entered the landscape more recently but has filed at a strong pace since 2021. Pivot Bio and Nature’s Fynd started earlier and have maintained a more stable filing rhythm.
These trends suggest that companies are actively expanding their patent portfolios rather than relying on early-stage filings. For investors, partners, and policymakers, this momentum signals both future potential and a strategic commitment to innovation.
While most of the top biotech start-ups show clear intent to globalize their innovations through broad international patent protection, crucial strategic differences remain. For example, Abogen Biosciences follows a primarily domestic filing strategy, protecting the majority of its patents in China. This pattern is common among emerging Chinese innovators, focused first on their local market. In contrast, fellow Chinese start-up Hangzhou DAC demonstrates a markedly more global approach. Across the broader cohort, companies like Mammoth Biosciences, Pairwise and ElevateBio exhibit extensive multinational filings, indicating a clear push for a competitive positioning in key biotech markets. Such divergences in filing geography provide critical insight into each company’s growth strategy and potential for international collaboration.
Figure 4. Geographical distribution
To assess the true scale of these rising players, it is helpful to benchmark them against established industry leaders in the red, green, and white biotech domains. Putting the innovation scale of these emerging start-ups in context, the strongest individual start-up portfolio—held by Mammoth Biosciences—represents just over one tenth of the strength of Roche, which is the leading corporate patent holder in the field.
Figure 5: Portfolio strength comparison of the Top 10 start-ups vs established leaders
However, what stands out is that the average portfolio quality as measured by the average competitive impact (the start-ups’ portfolio strength per patent family) matches or even exceeds that of many mature players. This signals that while scale is still developing, the underlying technologies of these start-ups is already highly competitive. This compact yet potent footprint reinforces the potential of these companies to disrupt specific niches. They can emerge as influential partners or acquisition targets for established industry leaders. This is especially true given that their average competitive impact approaches a factor of 10 above the global baseline. The normalized average across all jurisdictions, technologies and applicants is one. Bayer and Corteva maintain broad patent portfolios, which naturally lowers average quality due to scale. However, when isolating their top 10% highest-quality biotech patents, Bayer holds around 600 and Corteva nearly 300 families. They both exceed the average quality level of all other players in this analysis.
Figure 6: Competitive impact (Average portfolio quality) vs Patent Asset Index (Portfolio strength) of the Top 10 start-ups vs established leaders
An aggregated view of the technology focus across red, green, and white biotech reveals a notable divergence between emerging start-ups and established industry leaders. Among the top corporates, only Bayer and Corteva exhibit a strong concentration in green biotech, reflecting their core competencies in agriculture and crop science. Most other top-tier players including Roche, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, show diversified patent portfolios anchored in red biotech.
Figure 7: Share of total patent portfolio size
Start-ups like Pairwise and Pivot Bio demonstrate a pronounced focus on green biotechnology. This aligns them with established players such as Bayer and Corteva. Their portfolios are similarly anchored in agriculture and crop science. Pairwise has entered into multi-year collaborations with both companies, partnering with Bayer on CRISPR-based trait development and launching a US $25-million joint venture with Corteva to accelerate gene-edited, climate-resilient crops. Meanwhile, Pivot Bio is scaling its microbial nitrogen solutions through a nationwide network of partnerships with agricultural cooperatives, combining product deployment with conservation and incentive programs. These collaborations underscore both the strategic fit and complementary potential that can drive partnerships and acquisitions in the evolving green biotech landscape.
Patent analytics based on curated datasets and advanced indicators provide a powerful lens through which promising start-ups and their technological positioning can be identified and assessed in relation to established players. By revealing both areas of overlap and untapped complementarity, these insights can guide corporate strategy, partnership scouting, and M&A evaluations with a key level of objectivity. For IP professionals, such analyses not only support high-level decision making but also help sensitive other business functions to the strategic value of intellectual property, establishing it as a critical contributor to long-term innovation and growth. These analytics empower IP leaders to act as strategic partners in guiding innovation investments, identifying market white spaces and aligning IP development with long-term objectives.
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