Eisai: Analysis of patenting 1993-1996

Eisai, Japan's seventh largest pharmaceutical company, ranks 30th in the world, and has shown steady growth in all respects since 1993. Pharmaceutical patenting relates mainly to aspects other than novel compounds, but there are strong projects focusing on cardiovascular and anticancer products; unusually for a Japanese company, antibacterials and antivirals are not a major interest. Inventors, almost all Japanese, tend to work in large, stable teams, but diverse mechanisms are being explored in all of the principal and secondary therapeutic areas. Only a minority of Eisai's patent applications are filed internationally, and even then the territorial coverage is modest by current standards.