US PTO re-examines Singulair patent after online community searches for prior art
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
The US Patent & Trademark Office has ordered a re-examination of Merck & Co's US patent No 5,565,473, covering the active ingredient in its top-selling asthma drug Singulair (montelukast sodium) tablets, saying that new questions of patentability have been raised by a New York-based company known as Article One Partners LLC, which recruits scientists worldwide to seek out prior art that suggests a drug's key ingredient is not novel.