Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, one of the most common viral infections in the world, remains a major global public health issue despite of the availability of vaccine and antiviral drugs, especially in developing countries as India and China. Currently, available treatments for HBV can inhibit virus replication but fail to eliminate the virus and long-term reliance on therapies brings huge burden for patients, which means that there is urgent need for development of new therapies. Against this backdrop, it is necessary to find out the current R&D situation of HBV drugs and summarize the evolution process of related technology provide suggestions for future development of HBV drugs based on patent citation analysis. The purpose of this study is to visualize the cooperation networks and technology flow in the HBV drugs R&D field by analyzing the R&D cooperation networks and patent citation networks; analyze the current status quo of HBV drugs R&D and the characteristics of the technology flow; and provide suggestions for research personnel, pharmaceutical enterprises and concerning government departments. This study collected data from the IMS LifeCycle databases, 212 US patents related to HBV were retrieved after taking the patent family into consideration. Then the distribution of patents, cooperation of research and development (R&D) and patent citation analysis were explored in the study. The research cooperation network analysis is based on node centrality, betweenness centrality and closeness centrality cluster characteristics, evolving process and the “end point” of technology flow in the R&D of HBV drugs are explored through patent citation analysis. According to the distributions of patents, we found out that the bloom period of HBV drugs’ R&D had passed. From the perspective of research cooperation, research-oriented universities are at the core of cooperation on HBV drugs and play the most active part in the network in terms of direct or indirect cooperation. The structure of patent citation network is characterized by relative high dispersion of the several technology groups. In addition, this study analyzed the “end points” of technology flows in the network and identified the potential of therapeutic vaccines involving multi-technologies. Finally, this study integrates patent distribution, joint application and patent citation and highlighted technology characteristics demonstrated by patents, as well as vi identifies the current R&D status quo and technology evolution trend in certain fields using multi-dimensional methods, which can be applied in different research areas after necessary optimization.

乙型肝炎病毒(Hepatitis B virus, HBV)感染是世界上最常見的病毒感染之 一，儘管目前已有疫苗和抗病毒藥物被投入使用，但依然是全球公共衛生的 重要難題，尤其在是中國、印度等發展中國家。目前的治療手段衹能抑制病 毒的複製，并未能完全殺死病毒。另一方面，對藥物的長期依賴給患者帶來 沉重的負擔，這也意味著社會各界對新藥研發有很大需求。在此背景下，需 要對目前的乙肝藥物研發狀況與相關技術的演進過程進行梳理，通過專利引 證分析準確地反映技術的演進過程，合理地爲未來乙肝藥物的發展趋势提供 参考意見。 本文的研究目的，是通過研發合作網絡及專利引證網絡，使乙肝藥物研 發領域的合作關係與技術流動可視化，並分析其研發格局及技術流動的特 點。根據研究結果爲乙肝藥物研發工作相關的科研人員、制藥企業及政府部 門提供建設性意見。 本研究從 IMS LifeCycle 數據庫中收集了乙肝藥物的相關專利，對同族專 利進行整理后，獲得美國專利 212 個，作為研究的樣本。對專利的分佈情 況、乙肝藥物研發合作、專利引證網絡三個層面進行分析。通過網絡分析的 方法，利用節點中心度、間距中心度、緊密中心度三個指標對乙肝藥物研發 合作網絡進行分析；對乙肝藥物的專利引證網絡從集群特徵、演進趨勢以及 技術流動“末端”情況展開論述。 根據專利的分佈情況，我們認爲乙肝藥物研發已經走過繁榮期。從研發 合作角度來看，研究型大學處於乙肝藥物合作的核心位置，不論是直接合作 還是間接合作，大學機構都是該合作網絡中最活躍的部分。從專利引證網絡 的結構來看，各集群間相對分散，形成了多個差異化的技術團體。此外，本 研究對網絡中的技術流動“末端”進行分析，結果顯示多技術融合型的疫苗類 產品可能成爲未來的研發方向。 最後，本研究以專利爲切入點，綜合專利分佈信息、專利聯合申請和專 利引證三大板塊，重點突出了專利所包含的技術特徵信息，呈現了一種可以 多維度地分析特定領域内的目前的研發格局與技術演進趨勢，該方法可以在 適當優化后用於不同的領域的研究中。 iv