Metabolic Diseases

Patents and exclusivity

Get data on patents and exclusivity to model potential public health effects of expiration of exclusivity. Combine with other data sources for population specific estimates (e.g. EUROHEART, WHO Atlases).

Substances
13
Protections in force
31
PatentRegulatory exclusivityMarket eventTodayBar opacity shows confidence: solid is high, faint is low.Some patents have a known expiry but no sourced filing date. Those bars start at the approval in that region, which is an anchor for reading the chart, not a claim about when the patent was filed. The tooltip says so for each one.

Earliest possible generic entry

The latest expiring protection that blocks a generic, across all indications. Settlements can let a generic in earlier, and indication-specific patents can keep a particular use locked up for longer.

Semaglutide · EU
Supplementary protection certificate
2031-03-19
Semaglutide · US
Compound patent
2031-12-05
Tirzepatide · US
Compound patent
2036-01-05
Tirzepatide · EU
Supplementary protection certificate
2037-09-15

How to read this, and what it is not

Three different things can keep a generic off the market, and they expire independently. A patent is a property right over the molecule, a formulation, a device or a specific medical use. A regulatory exclusivity is a bar on the regulator rather than a property right: five years for a new chemical entity in the US, three for a new indication, twelve for a biologic, eight plus two in the EU. A market event is something that actually happened, such as a first generic approval. The gate on generic entry is the latest expiring protection that blocks it, which is often not the compound patent.

Method-of-use patents and the US three-year exclusivity attach to a single indication, so a substance can be generic for one use while still protected for another. That is what the indication filter is for.

Dates are not uniformly reliable. A supplementary protection certificate in Europe is granted separately by each member state, so the same substance can lapse on slightly different days across the EU, and rows marked statutory maximum are a calculated upper bound rather than a granted certificate. For some substances the public record is openly inconsistent, which is why every row carries a confidence level shown as bar opacity. Confidential litigation settlements can also let a generic in years before any listed expiry. Treat this as a research orientation, not as legal or regulatory advice.

The substances listed here are the ones that appear in our published study data. Each protection gets its own row, so nothing is stacked or overlapping, and the rows for one substance are grouped together with the US before the EU.

Exclusivity data verified 2026-10-05.