MUNICH (dpa-AFX) - According to a study, Germany is the European leader in patent applications for innovations in the fight against cancer. With top applicants such as Bayer and Siemens, Germany accounts for almost a quarter (23 percent) of European-based patent applicants and more than 9,000 international patent families in this field between 2002 and 2021, according to a report published by the European Patent Office on Thursday. Germany has maintained its leading position in Europe over the past 20 years despite a slight decline in numbers, the authors wrote on the occasion of World Cancer Day on February 4.

Worldwide, Germany ranks fourth with 9375 international patent families in this period - after the USA, Japan and China. A patent family stands for a group of patent applications that relate to the same or similar technical content.

According to the Patent Office's report, the USA is the world leader in cancer-related innovations: around 46% of all inventions for which patents were filed between 2002 and 2021 are held by American companies. In Europe, the United Kingdom is in second place behind Germany and ahead of France and Switzerland.

Companies such as Bayer and Siemens at the forefront - Swiss in the lead

Pharmaceutical companies from the USA and Europe are among the most important patent applicants in the fight against cancer, according to the report. The inventions are mostly focused on innovative cancer therapies, such as the German top applicant Bayer. Others, such as Siemens, specialize in diagnostics. In the period from 2002 to 2021, Bayer and Siemens were at the top in Germany and in 6th and 7th place worldwide among the companies with the most patent applications.

The Swiss pharmaceutical giants Roche and Novartis were the global leaders in terms of applications, followed by the Dutch healthcare group Philips as well as Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer (both USA). In Germany, Merck and Boehringer Ingelheim took third and fourth place respectively. BASF and Biontech are also among the top German applicants.

Despite all the progress in research and technology, cancer remains a global threat to health, the authors wrote. In the EU, almost one in three men and one in four women are diagnosed with cancer before the age of 75, they said, referring to figures from the European Cancer Information System.

However, the patent office reported encouraging signs. Between 2015 and 2021 alone, inventions in the fight against cancer grew by 70 percent in terms of the annual number of international patent families. There have been breakthroughs in immunotherapies and gene therapies, for example. Alongside the study, the authority presented an online portal that aims to give researchers a better overview of innovations in the fight against cancer./als/DP/zb