WIPO China: Meet the Three Chinese Winners of the 2026 WIPO Global Awards

The winners of the 2026 WIPO Global Awards have been announced. This year's 11 winning startups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were selected from a record 1,300+ applications from 126 countries, showcasing what can be achieved when IP strategy and business execution advance hand in hand. Among the 11 winners of the 2026 WIPO Global Awards, 3 are from China. They are:

Botree - ENVIRONMENT SME

The world keeps building electric vehicle batteries. But by 2030, the retired ones will represent 12 million tons, enough to fill nearly 5,000 Olympic swimming pools. Until now, recovering the materials inside was too complex to do at scale.

Botree, an SME from China, closes the loop. Their process extracts nickel, cobalt, and lithium from retired batteries, making recycling cheaper than mining.

Their technology is licensed and deployed in over 60 projects and 14 countries, and clients include CATL, BASF, Toyota Tsusho, and BMW. In Spain, Botree took it further, licensing its IP into a joint venture for long-term revenue share.

ArteryFlow - HEALTH SME

Every year, 18 million people die from heart disease, making it the world's leading cause of death. Yet precise diagnosis still requires invasive procedures that are slow, expensive, and risky.

ArteryFlow, an SME from China, applied aerospace fluid dynamics to human blood flow. From a standard medical scan, their AI delivers a full vascular assessment in under 5 minutes, at 25% of the cost.

Approved in China, the US, and Europe, the platform has served over 100,000 patients across 400 medical institutions worldwide. Protected across three continents, their IP has opened licensing partnerships with Siemens Healthineers and Philips.

Regend - HEALTH STARTUP

Every year, millions of people lose the ability to breathe freely. Chronic lung diseases destroy lung tissue, and no treatment can rebuild it.

Regend Therapeutics, a startup from China, uses a patient's own lung cells to regenerate damaged alveoli from within. In clinical trials, patients who could barely walk returned to daily life.

Protected across three continents, their IP supports a therapy recognized by the FDA and backed by USD 48 million. In the age of regenerative medicine, Regend is scaling fast, and the world is watching.

2026 WIPO Global Awards Winners

Each category rewards one startup and one SME, ensuring early-stage and established companies are judged on equal footing, across Agriculture and Food, Creative Industries, Environment, Health, and ICT, plus a new Special Award marking the 2026 World IP Day theme: Sports.

The award ceremony took place during the WIPO Assemblies, bringing together delegates from WIPO's 194 member states — a rare stage for SMEs and startups to speak about their business needs directly to global policymakers. Director General Daren Tang presented trophies to the winners, along with special mentions for Best Woman Entrepreneur and Best Young Entrepreneur.

The winners will now enter the program's acceleration phase, which includes:

• Strategic business support: 25 hours of tailored one-on-one coaching covering IP and business models, market access, and financing.
• Access to WIPO's ecosystem partner network, connecting them with investors, accelerators, and service providers.
• International visibility before business and policy audiences, during and beyond the award ceremony in Geneva.