Merck’s Keytruda Under Scrutiny as Warren Questions Patents

US Senator Elizabeth Warren is pushing for greater scrutiny on new patents for Merck & Co.’s blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda, calling into question the company’s push to get intellectual property protection for a self-injectable form of the drug.

Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, sent a letter Wednesday to the head of the US Patent and Trademark Office, arguing Merck is “extending its monopoly power over the drug” by applying for new intellectual property protection. She asked the agency to reject any applications that don’t “clearly meet the agency’s standards of novelty, utility, and non-obviousness.” The letter was co-signed by three ...