In a lift for Merck, a U.S. Patent and Trademark Workplace panel agreed to rethink a patent granted to a different firm that would have an effect on plans to broaden use of its franchise product, the Keytruda most cancers therapy.
The dispute with Halozyme Therapeutics happens as Merck plans to promote a brand new injectable model of Keytruda that the corporate is betting will maintain a drugs that has accounted for almost half of its gross sales. Patent safety for the therapy, which is at the moment administered intravenously and generated $29.5 billion in income final 12 months, lapses in 2028.
At subject earlier than the PTO are sure enzymes referred to as Mdase that Halozyme developed to allow the administration of medicine by injection. Final November, Merck petitioned the PTO to rethink seven patents that have been awarded to Halozyme, arguing they have been overly broad and shouldn’t have been granted. The submitting got here a couple of months after the PTO granted one patent particularly.
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