The Top 100 Cited Research Kits & Assays: 2026 Analysis
5
Min Read
In this blog:
- Thermo scientific, Beyotime Biotechnology and New England Biolabs supplied the most cited research Kits & Assays of the past year
- Cell proliferation and viability kits remained popular, with a new entrant breaking into the the Top 10
- Download data on the top 100 Life Science Kits & Assays for your own analysis and to see if you rank!
CiteAb collects information on product use in the scientific literature, curating an industry-leading life science reagent database that powers data services for suppliers & pharma companies, and a search platform to help scientists find the right products, faster.
Welcome to CiteAb’s Top 100 series for 2026!
Today, we’re spotlighting the 100 most-cited kits and assays in life science research over the past year, sharing insight on the products and companies ranking.
Data & Methodology
For over a decade, we’ve developed industry-leading, patent-protected text mining tech, collecting information on nearly 1.1M kits and assays – covering ELISA Kits, multiplex immunoassay kits, conjugation kits and much more – from nearly 400 suppliers.
We specifically focus on citation counts: a measure of how frequently a product appears in peer-reviewed, published research. This data helps researchers see what their peers are reaching for, and gives suppliers a leading indicator of future demand as well as insight into past research activity.
This analysis draws from a year’s worth of that data, across all suppliers and all kit types, ranking products by citation count.
The Kits & Assays Suppliers Supporting a Significant Volume of Research
Overall, 22 suppliers saw products rank in the Top 100 Report, an impressive range of companies’ providing widely used research tools.
We flagged Beyotime Biotechnology’s momentum last year after they added 10 new kits to the Top 100 rankings. That growth has continued. They now have 23 products in the Top 100, skewed toward broad staple assays like BCA protein and ATP kits.
BioLegend, who entered the list last year with its Zombie viability range, has also expanded its foothold to three Zombie products.
Another notable player in the Top 100 was Nanjing Jiancheng Biotechnology, who saw 4 new entries. This goes to show just how dynamic the market is, and broadly reflects the growth of research in China.
The Top Cited Research Kits & Assays Leading the Market
Broad stability at the very top of the life science kits market
Qiagen’s RNeasy Mini Kit held the top spot, followed by Thermo Scientific’s Pierce™ BCA Protein Assay Kit at #2. These are the same top two we’ve seen for several years running.
Cell proliferation and viability kits were the most-cited category overall, continuing last year’s trend. These kits were notably vendor-diverse. For example, CCK-8 appeared five times from four different suppliers.
One such cell proliferation and viability kit was Dojindo’s Cell Counting Kit- 8 (CK04), which was the third most cited kit. This kit made a big leap, moving up 8 spots from last year’s analysis to break into the Top 10, and disrupt that stability at the top of the rankings.
Nucleic acid purification and amplification kits also proved popular. However, expanding out, if we were to group all molecular biology kits, this would make it the single biggest category in the Top 100 (these kits span purification and amplification kits, as well as cloning, PCR, NGS library prep and more).
Rising Kits & Assays to Watch for your Pipeline Strategy
New entrants into the Top 100 show the kits market is not static
This year saw 14 new products enter the Top 100. Some examples included:
- ChamQ Universal SYBR qPCR Master Mix (Q711) from Vazyme Biotech: the highest debut this year, landing at #30.
- FastDNA™ SPIN Kit for Soil (116560200) from MP Biomedicals: ranked at #48, reflecting strong demand for specialised environmental sample extraction.
- Quick-RNA Miniprep Kit (R2014) from Zymo Research: Entered the list at #41
These additions mark the entry of these suppliers into the Top 100 list – showing that strong product offerings and strategies can lead to breakthroughs at the top of the market.
We also saw New England Biolabs make impressive gains in rank with their molecular biology kits, reinforcing their dominance across these workflows:
- NEB NEBNext® Ultra™ II RNA Library Prep Kit for Illumina® (E7770): +53 places
- NEB NEBuilder® HiFi DNA Assembly Cloning Kit (E5520): +53 places
- NEB Monarch® Total RNA Miniprep Kit (T2010): +52 places
- NEB NEBNext® Ultra™ RNA Library Prep Kit for Illumina® (E7530): +37 places
Looking for product trends beyond the top 100? Reach out to the team here about our market data services.
Wrap-up and Data Download
Simply enter your details below to freely download the complete list of the Top 100 Cited Kits & Assays, and see where you rank.
Dr Andrew Chalmers, CEO of CiteAb, commented on the findings:
“This year’s Top 100 Cited Kits & Assays shows a market that’s stable at the top but far from static. 14 new products broke into the Top 100 this year, and Dojindo’s Cell Counting Kit-8 jumped 8 spots into the top 3 – showing there’s still room for newer or well-positioned products to break through. We’ll be watching this space to see how suppliers can impact the rankings in future years.”
Looking to explore more analysis? Follow the links to see more of our Top 100 Reports for this year.
- Top 100 Research Protein Report
- Top 100 Bioactive Small Molecules Report
- Top 100 Life Science Instruments Report
- Top 100 Cell Lines Report
- Top 100 Research Antibody Report
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FAQs
We compile the list by mining published life science research for kit and assay usage. Products are then ranked according to their citation count across the past year’s publications to arrive at the Top 100.
This analysis is published once a year. You can access last year’s edition, the 2025 Top 100 Cited Kits and Assays Analysis, here.
Sales figures sit internally within each company. Citation data, by contrast, spans the entire market – covering thousands of kits and assays – to enable benchmarking and analysis of global research trends. Citation trends often predict future sales.
Citation data shows exactly how scientists are putting products to use, and signals where demand is likely to shift next. That insight helps product teams planning new launches or refining catalogues, supports market-wide benchmarking, and delivers precise, trend-driven strategy for sales and marketing efforts.
