Abstract: In recent years, hepatitis C could be cured though it had caused great harm to the health and life of patients in the past. Chinese market is becoming a new continent of opportunity for pharmaceutical giants to seek performance growth, and the competition is intensifying. This study attempts to explore the development trends of global technology on HCV from the perspective of patent and market, aiming to provide reference for future development in China. Based on the patent data from 1998 to 2018 at home and abroad collected by Derwent Innovation (DI) platform, the paper comprehensively uses bibliometric and visualization methods to implement quantitative statistical analysis of the application year, country, important institutions and their R&D layout, and qualitatively analyzes the famous therapeutic drugs and evolution of institutional collaborative innovation combined with industry and market information. The results show that in the past two decades, patentees of the hepatitis C field have attached great importance to international applications and collaborative innovation; the United States is in the forefront of research and development in this area and many multinational pharmaceutical companies have a number of oral medicines that can achieve a curative effect; Chinese local pharmaceutical companies have faced serious threats. It is suggested that local pharmaceutical companies and research institutions should consider refining and deepening their research theme, try to adjust the research direction according to market demand, expand the research field to similar diseases, and strengthen the construction of competitive intelligence to adjust R&D and market strategies in a timely manner to better cope with the reality of the gradual shrinkage of China's hepatitis C market in the future.

Key words: Hepatitis C Virus, Bibliometrics, Patent Analysis, Patent Map