Research and Development Situation Analysis of Anti-breast Cancer Drugs from Patent Intelligence Perspective

The current incidence of breast cancer has increased dramatically, becoming the highest rate of cancer in women. The mortality of it ranked second. However, the process of researching and developing new drugs against breast cancer is extremely long and risky. This paper aims at providing important technical support for the relevant research institutions and pharmaceutical enterprises through mining of information from the patents. Based on the "Derwent Innovations Index" (DII) database, this article studies the current situation and development trend of the research on anti-breast cancer drugs from the aspects of patent applications, patent lifecycle, patent technology field, network density, degree centrality, structural holes, research theme and research frontier using the methods of patent bibliometrics analysis, social network analysis and term co-occurrence analysis. The results show that there are 22,102 patent applications of anti-breast cancer drugs in the global scope, which is in a stable technology development period in recent years. The number of patent applications in the United States and China is in the absolute leading position. The field of patent technology focuses on the study of anti-tumor activity and its pharmaceutical dosage forms. Research themes mainly involved in the gene expression of breast cancer, pharmaceutical preparation, drug combinations, malignancies, angiogenesis inhibitors, immune responses, small-molecule targeted anti-tumor drugs design, drug-protein binding, and mechanism of drug action, etc. Meanwhile delaying progression, drug combinations, antagonists, vaccine research and tyrosine kinase inhibitor are the development trend of anti-breast cancer drugs research. However, the patent technology of anti-breast cancer drugs in our country is mainly in the hands of universities and institutes, it is suggested to strengthen the combination of research and development to realize the industrialization of anti-breast cancer drugs.