Leading research antibodies: top 100 cited products, 2024 update 

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Min Read

In this blog:

  • Which antibody products are researchers citing frequently in the scientific literature?
  • Which antibody companies are providing highly referenced products, supporting researchers in their work?
  • Download the full top 100 dataset!

For our top 100 research reagent series, we take a closer look at the most popular products used in publications in the cell line, kits & assay, growth factor, bioactive small molecule and antibody markets.


In a competitive market with over 8.5 million research antibody products amassing over 3 million citations, which are the most cited RUO antibody products in the scientific literature?

In this antibody market analysis of the top 100 cited products from the past year, we explore:

  • Leading antibody companies featuring, including Cell Signaling Technology, Abcam and Thermo Fisher Scientific and more
  • Changes in RUO antibody market demand, with a high number of secondary antibodies featuring and seven new antibodies entering the top 100
  • Antibody market competition, with 12 antibody vendors appearing in the dataset

Plus, you can download the data for your own analysis at the bottom of this blog!

Top 100 RUO antibodies 2023- market trends summarised.

Who are the top antibody reagent companies? 

Benchmark performance and inform your antibody market research with data on which companies are supplying popular antibody products.

The top three antibody vendors

In this dataset, we found Cell Signaling Technology, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Abcam led with the most cited antibodies in publications from 2023.

Cell Signaling Technology claimed the most antibodies in the top 100, with 35 products appearing. They also led the top 100 antibody dataset in 2022, demonstrating sustained support for researchers in this space.  

Impressively, Thermo Fisher Scientific have grown their antibody market share and have added four products to the top 100. They now rank in second position in this dataset.

Abcam have also increased the number of antibodies they hold in the top 100. They currently have 19 products featuring, the third most in this dataset.

The top five antibody vendors

Rounding out the top five and keeping antibody market competition high are MilliporeSigma and Proteintech.

We have previously commented on Proteintech’s increasing antibody market share on our blog.

In this top 100 dataset, their most popular antibody (GAPDH Monoclonal antibody (60004-1-Ig) moved up to position 15 from 31st, demonstrating growing use by scientists.

Could we expect a Proteintech product to break into the top 10 antibodies next year? 

MilliporeSigma’s top cited RUO antibody was a Monoclonal ANTI-FLAG M2 antibody produced in mouse, maintaining fifth position. We will be watching to see if MilliporeSigma can grow their presence and add more products to the top 10 in the future.

A pie chart to show the top cited antibody companies in the top 100 market dataset

Overall in our top 100 antibody dataset we found 12 different suppliers featuring.

We have around 340 companies in our complete antibody database, showing the overall market to be larger and more diverse than what is represented at the top. 


Research antibody companies to watch

Outside of the top five suppliers, we noticed a number of companies succeeding in the antibody market. 

ABclonal entered the top 100 dataset for the first time this year, with one antibody in the top 100. They also hold a second antibody in the top 150.

We have noted ABclonal’s growth in antibody market share over on our blog, uncovering an impressive upward trajectory in recent years. In our previous commentary, we found that they ranked very highly in the Chinese market. This could, in part, account for their entry into the top 100. 

Beyotime Biotechnology entered the top 100 for the first time last year, and have maintained their position here against some strong competition. 

Interestingly, their HRP-labeled Goat Anti-Rabbit IgG(H+L) (A0208) product climbed 21 places. Given this increasing popularity, we will be watching to see if they can add any antibodies to the top cited list in the future. They also supply a second antibody which ranked just outside the top 100, at position 103.

LI-COR and Dako, both featuring in the top 100, also saw antibodies ranking in the top 200. If these products see increasing citation counts in 2024, they could expand their footprint in the top 100 list.


Trends in RUO antibody use

Understanding antibody market demand, through quantitative insight into how researchers are using products, can help in spotting popular targets or product types to inform product development.

Which are the most used research antibodies?

Maintaining the top spot for another year, Cell Signaling Technology’s Anti-rabbit IgG HRP-linked Antibody (CAT# 7074) was the most cited antibody in 2023. 

Impressively, Cell Signaling Technology antibodies round out the top three products. Their Anti-mouse IgG, HRP-linked Antibody (7076) and Phospho-Akt (Ser473) (D9E) XP® Rabbit mAb (4060) rank in positions two and three. 

Which antibody reagents are growing in citation share?

Looking exclusively at the top 10 research reagents, we saw three antibodies appear for the first time. 

  • Thermo’s Goat anti-Mouse IgG (H+L) Cross-Adsorbed Secondary Antibody, Alexa Fluor 488 (A-11001) 
  • CST’s GAPDH (14C10) Rabbit mAb (2118) 
  • Thermo’s Donkey anti-Rabbit IgG (H+L) Highly Cross-Adsorbed Secondary Antibody, Alexa Fluor 488 (A-21206)
Table to show the increase in citation share for three RUO antibodies that entered the top 100 cited list for the first time in 2023

In total, we saw seven new antibodies enter the top 100. 

These mostly consisted of secondary antibody products. Overall, we saw an increase in the number of secondary antibodies featured compared to last year’s data analysis. 

Aside from secondary antibodies, we saw antibodies against targets Anti-Glutathione Peroxidase 4 and beta-actin enter the list. To get a sense of which targets researchers are widely interested in, you can download the full top 100 dataset at the bottom of this blog.


Trends in the recombinant and monoclonal antibody market


When we turned our attention to antibody types in the top 100, we found a quarter of the most popular products were recombinant monoclonal antibodies. 

This number has remained unchanged from last year, showing sustained use for recombinant antibodies in the scientific literature. These products offer various benefits to researchers, such as lot-to-lot consistency and reliable supply.

Turning our attention to the RUO monoclonal antibody market more broadly, we found that 44 of the top 100 antibodies were monoclonal. This contrasts slightly with the overall trend we see in our complete antibody dataset, where around 64% of the RUO antibodies cited are monoclonal. 

This could be due to the high numbers of cited secondaries that reach the top 100. This year we saw that 34 secondary antibodies made the top 100, compared to the 30 that featured in our previous analysis.

We will be interested to see if the top 100 dataset begins to reflect the broader market over time with increasing education around antibody use and characterisation. Will more researchers switch to monoclonal alternatives?


Wrap up: the antibody data used in this analysis and downloading the data for yourself! 

At CiteAb, we have developed AI-driven text mining tech to identify product citations in academic publications, which a team of scientists review for accuracy. These citations enable analysis into past purchasing decisions, as well as antibody market forecasting. 

Our RUO antibody database covers products from over 340 manufacturers. This includes the monoclonal antibody market, recombinant antibody market and polyclonal antibody market, giving a good view of antibody market size and competition.

This data can aid your product development workflow and company strategy, helping you to understand trends in research use to better inform your decision making.

Learn more about CiteAb's antibody market data services

You can freely download the 100 most cited antibodies below. This also includes information on the companies who supply them, for your own analysis.

Keep an eye on our blog and sign up to our mailing list below to be notified when the next top 100 blog comes out. 

Still to come is our analysis of the top 100 cell lines and bioactive small molecules. 

You can also catch up on analysis we’ve released so far below: 

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  • Kathryn and the CiteAb team
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