The life sciences is a rapidly growing sector, tackling issues which closely impact humans. Advances in technology, particularly in the digital sphere, met with an evolving regulatory landscape are reshaping the industry, especially across medical treatments and drug discovery. AI and cutting-edge computer models are accelerating R&D, whilst the EU Pharma Package, agreed in December, marks the first time in over twenty years that there has been a major overhaul of the EU’s pharmaceutical rules.
As technology develops, the number of patent filings are growing in tandem. Crowded patent landscapes mean that a robust intellectual property strategy is key and there may be a shift in the way companies approach their IP in response to the rise in competition. Strong IP protection is particularly essential for life sciences companies. As the process of developing a product is so lengthy, owning IP adds value to a business before there is a concrete product or a source of revenue.
In this article, Associate Max Ziemann unpacks the innovation in medicine and pharmaceuticals which has been gathering momentum in the last few years and will shape the sector in 2026.
The UK Life Sciences sector
The UK life sciences sector has a solid history of world-class research, but to ensure commercial success alongside global competitors, the legal and policy landscape is just as integral as the science itself. As the sector undergoes transformation, the UK government must continue to encourage global investment and innovation.
The Life Sciences Sector Plan, published in July last year, shows the government’s commitment to making the UK a leader in life sciences. The plan covers action points such as building an advanced national health data platform and ensuring the MHRA streamlines regulation and market access.
The UK already has a robust IP regime with specialist IP courts, experienced judges and well-established case law. Looking forward to 2026 and beyond, expedited patent examination and patent term extensions may be the next step to fostering innovation.
Areas to watch
Advanced therapeutics
Innovative medical treatments addressing the root causes of diseases which involve the insertion of biological material into the body, such as cell therapy, or the modification of biological material in the body, such as gene editing, have made major leaps in recent years. This new approach to healthcare represents a clear shift towards personalised medicine, where treatment can be designed with each individual patient in mind. It is bringing us closer to curing some of mankind’s most devastating diseases.
For example, CAR-T therapy has already been successful in curing some forms of leukaemia and scientists are continuing to test its potential. Early clinical data suggests that CAR-T therapies could tackle solid tumours, which are notoriously difficult to treat due to their complex mix of cell types, and scientists are also looking beyond cancer into autoimmune disease. In October 2025, a patient in the UK with multiple sclerosis was the first to trial CAR-T therapy.
Evidently, cell therapy is showing no sign of slowing down, remaining a strong area of interest for investment, and we are likely to see many life-changing breakthroughs in the future. As pharmaceutical companies attempt to bring cell therapies into the mainstream, emerging methods, such as allogeneic as opposed to autologous therapies, may gain traction.
Multi-omics
Multi-omics signify another new frontier of precision medicine. Multi-omic data refers to the combination of information from genomics, epigenomics, proteomics, transcriptomics and metabolomics. The integration of this data can be harnessed to classify diseases, identify biomarkers and discover new drug targets.
Progress in computational models is enabling the rapid evolution and uptake of multi-omics. AI, for example, can efficiently mine huge sets of multi-omic data to identify novel drug targets. This will provide researchers with valuable insights into individual disease biology, informing future development of treatments.
Integration of AI into pharmaceuticals
Multi-omics is not the only area where AI can assist: the use of AI across biopharma R&D is not just a possibility anymore, but a core step. The ability of AI to scour vast databases, extract patterns and carry out predictive modelling is revolutionary in speeding up the drug discovery pipeline. AI can be harnessed at almost every stage from target identification to preclinical assessment.
At the start of this year, UK Basecamp Research shared their collaboration with Nvidia. AI models analysed their dataset of evolutionary information from more than a million designed potential new therapies. This resulted in the first demonstration of AI-designed enzymes that can perform precise large gene insertion in humans.
More and more, pharmaceutical companies are strengthening their AI capabilities through acquisitions and strategic partnerships. It is likely that we have only seen the tip of the iceberg of what AI can do when it comes to healthcare.
You can read our previous article on AI innovation in drug discovery here to learn more about how the integration of AI in pharmaceuticals means that, firstly, companies must consider their IP strategy and, secondly, the broader IP infrastructure must take the use of AI into account.
GLP-1
GLP-1-focused obesity biotechs constitute a huge market, estimated to generate more than $150bn in annual revenue by the early 2030s, and investment remained high in 2025.
Competition between leaders in the industry has already kicked off again in 2026. Novo Nordisk launched Wegovy in tablet form at the start of the year, marking a remarkable step for GLP-1 drugs. Originally self-administered with a weekly injection which had to be stored in the fridge, the oral alternative could make the drug more accessible for a larger group of people.
Keeping apace, Nimbus Therapeutics also announced that they have entered into a long-term licensing agreement with Eli Lilly. This partnership is driven by the goal of developing new oral treatments, as Novo Nordisk has done. They are also planning to use AI to help identify drug candidates, another example of AI’s new key role in drug development.
In addition, GLP-1RA is now attracting attention for purposes beyond tackling metabolic diseases. Clinical trials have shown that cardiometabolic and anti-obesity drugs could even slow down the process of ageing. Other trials are exploring the efficacy of GLP-1RA in specific diseases associated with old age, such as Alzheimer’s. Over the next few years, we may start to see the first wave of ‘longevity’ therapeutics: medication to increase both health span and lifespan.
3D bioprinting
Bioprinting is an exciting new application of 3D printing: the 3D printing of cellular structures from living cells. Its success unlocks many opportunities, such as the creation of tissue-like constructs for grants or scaffolds, modelling of human organs or 3D tumour models, and, beyond medicine, its use is being explored for novel food structures, such as in the alternative proteins sphere.
In March last year, scientists from Newcastle University unveiled a new 3D bio-printer that produces human-like tissue. This has the potential to revolutionise drug development, providing a more accurate alternative to testing on in-vitro cell cultures.
The possibility of printing cells which could actually be inserted into the human body is also being investigated. For example, scientists have printed insulin-producing human pancreas cells, bringing us closer to an off-the-shelf treatment for diabetes that could one day eliminate the need for insulin injections.
An IP perspective
Emerging trends in pharmaceuticals, and in particular New Chemical Entities, will inevitably require a robust IP strategy to be fully commercialised.
Even where developments do not relate to New Chemical Entities, various patent strategies exist to prolong the protection of pharmaceuticals. Second generation patents can be used to cover new medical indications, dosage regimens, methods of synthesis, innovative formulations, combination therapies, treatments of specific symptoms or sub-populations, etc. These tools are of great importance in the pharmaceutical industry, in particular where a large proportion of the original patent lifespan may have elapsed prior to market authorisation of the pharmaceutical.
The integration of AI systems into drug discovery presents a new question of the inventiveness of any intellectual property that arises. Inventions made with the assistance of artificial AI are increasingly facing objections on the grounds of obviousness/lack of inventive step. This means that Patent Offices may be increasingly taking the view that the bar for inventiveness has been raised and is not met by ‘routine’ use of AI systems. A change in policy from Patent Offices worldwide could reduce the value IP generating AI systems if such breakthroughs are no longer seen as suitably ‘inventive’.
The integration of AI systems into drug discovery also presents a new question of inventorship of any intellectual property that arises. The established case law at the UKIPO and the EPO is currently that AI system may not be named as an inventor on a patent (read more here). This means that the default position is that the person using the AI system is the inventor, from whom ownership rights are derived. However, AI companies are increasingly looking towards ‘performance based licencing’ models which could see them share in the financial success of new IP that was developed using their AI systems.
It seems that an AI system capable of producing this type of innovation may in of itself hold a far greater commercial value than the innovations it produces. This means that this system would also require an IP protection strategy. Increasingly, AI systems themselves as well as multi-omics-based approaches may face a trade-off between whether optimal protection is provided by patents and trade secrets. Patents directed towards these kinds of systems are typically not allowable in the UK or Europe, although methods exist for Applicants to avoid these restrictions. Trade secrets on the other hand may last indefinitely and do not run the risk of being denied by Patent Offices, but it is not clear how much value this would hold in such a fast-moving sector. For this reason it seems likely that a combination approach would be the optimum strategy for many innovators.
Emerging trends in life sciences, particularly in the way that research takes place, are fundamentally changing the way that IP protection is used. Value may be shifting from isolated molecules toward platforms, data, methods of use, and integrated digital systems, requiring more combined IP protection strategies.
