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Ampoule containing the Moderna vaccine
Photo: Rogelio V. Solis/AP
The US manufacturer Moderna is suing the pharmaceutical company Pfizer and its German partner Biontech for patent infringement in the development of corona vaccines.
According to the US company, the two companies copied technologies that Moderna had developed years before the pandemic.
The lawsuit has been filed in a US district court in Massachusetts and in the Dusseldorf district court, Moderna said.
"We are filing these lawsuits to protect the innovative mRNA technology platform that we pioneered, invested billions of dollars in developing and patented over the decade leading up to the Covid-19 pandemic," said Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel.
Moderna is only ten years old.
The company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is considered a pioneer of mRNA vaccine technology alongside Biontech.
In December 2020, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) first granted Pfizer/Biontech and a week later Moderna emergency use authorization for their corona vaccines.
Moderna accuses Biontech of two patent infringements
Moderna alleges that Pfizer/Biontech copied, without permission, mRNA technology that Moderna patented between 2010 and 2016 — well before the pandemic began.
Moderna said in 2020 that it would initially not enforce patent rights to help others develop their own vaccines, particularly for low- and middle-income countries.
However, in March 2022, Moderna said it expects companies like Pfizer and Biontech to respect intellectual property rights.
Pfizer and Biontech are already facing multiple lawsuits from other companies claiming the partnership's vaccine infringes their patents.
The German company Curevac, for example, also filed a lawsuit against Biontech in Germany in July.
Pfizer/Biontech have stated that they will vigorously defend their patents.
Moderna, in turn, has also been sued for patent infringement in the United States and is in an ongoing dispute with the US National Institutes of Health over the rights to the mRNA technology.
The lawsuit concerns two key components of the corona vaccine from Biontech and Pfizer: On the one hand, according to Moderna, Comirnaty should have the “same chemical mRNA modifications” as the US company’s vaccine.
These modifications of the mRNA are intended to prevent an unwanted immune response by the human body against the foreign mRNA.
On the other hand, Moderna claims to have patented the approach “to encode the full-length spike protein in a lipid nanoparticle formulation for a corona virus”.
According to the Americans, Biontech/Pfizer are also said to have violated this patent.
The legal dispute does not endanger the German vaccination campaign, which is expected to pick up speed again in the coming weeks with the new Omicron-specific variations of the vaccine.
Because Moderna says it does not want the vaccine to be taken off the market.
Apparently, the Americans are all about money – albeit a lot of money.
Because this year alone, Biontech expects to earn between 13 and 17 billion euros with Comirnaty.
beb/che/Reuters
