Among the second round of “double first-class” construction universities, 12 universities are in the process of building first-class pharmaceutical and traditional Chinese medicine disciplines.The aim is to explore the innovative development trend of these 12 universities, based on their information related to pharmacy and traditional Chinese medicine in the past five years.The study used the PatSnap global patent database to search for pharmaceutical related patents applied by 12 universities from 2018 to 2022, and analyzed the information from perspectives such as application and authorization volume, technical themes, transfer and licensing status, and international patent situation.The results reveal that comprehensive universities and China Pharmaceutical University are superior to other pharmaceutical universities in terms of patent application volume and licensing rate.From the perspective of patent classification, most of the relevant patents involve the effective ingredients of drugs.Comprehensive universities and China Pharmaceutical University pay more attention to the research of anti-tumor drugs.Among all authorized patents, the quantity is insufficient, and most of them are exclusive licenses.The transfer of relevant rights mostly occurs between universities and enterprises.In terms of international patent applications, comprehensive universities dominate in terms of quantity, but the total amount is still insufficient.In the future innovation and development process of “double first-class” universities, it is necessary to improve the awareness of patent protection and layout, attract relevant talents, give full play to the advantages of university intellectual property information service centers, and promote the transformation of university achievements.