Covid-19 vaccine: Moderna suing Pfizer/BioNTech for patent infringement

Moderna is suing Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech for patent infringement in the development of the first Covid-19 vaccine approved in the United States, alleging they copied technology that Moderna developed years before the pandemic.

Pfizer shares fell 1.4 percent before the bell while BioNTech was down about 2 percent.

The lawsuit, which seeks undetermined monetary damages, was being filed in US District Court in Massachusetts and the Regional Court of Dusseldorf in Germany, Moderna said in a news release yesterday.

"We are filing these lawsuits to protect the innovative mRNA technology platform that we pioneered, invested billions of dollars in creating, and patented during the decade preceding the Covid-19 pandemic," Moderna Chief Executive Stephane Bancel said in the statement.

Moderna Inc MRNA.O, on its own, and the partnership of Pfizer Inc PFE.N and BioNTech SE 22UAy.DE were two of the first groups to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus.

Pfizer said the company had not been served and that they were unable to comment at this time.

Just a decade old, Moderna, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, had been an innovator in the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine technology that enabled the unprecedented speed in developing the Covid-19 vaccine.

An approval process that previously took years was completed in months, thanks largely to the breakthrough in mRNA vaccines, which teach human cells how to make a protein that will trigger an immune response.

Germany-based BioNTech had also been working in this field when it partnered with the US pharma giant Pfizer.

The US Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorisation for the Covid-19 vaccine first to Pfizer/BioNTech in December 2020, then one week later to Moderna.

Moderna alleges Pfizer/BioNTech, without permission, copied mRNA technology that Moderna had patented between 2010 and 2016, well before Covid-19 emerged in 2019 and exploded into global consciousness in early 2020.

Pfizer and BioNTech are already facing multiple lawsuits from other companies who say the partnership's vaccine infringes on their patents. Pfizer/BioNTech have said they will defend their patents vigorously.

Germany's CureVac 5cv.DE, for instance, also filed a lawsuit against BioNTech in Germany in July. BioNTech responded in a statement that its work was original.

Moderna has also been sued for patent infringement in the United States and has an ongoing dispute with the US National Institutes of Health over rights to mRNA technology.