Moderna announced today that it is suing Pfizer and BioNTech, alleging patent infringement on its mRNA vaccine technology.“We bring these lawsuits to protect the innovative mRNA technology platform we pioneered and invested dozens of in the decade before the COVID-19 pandemic,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a statement. $100 million patent to create this platform.”
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Moderna said in 2020 that it would not enforce its patents during a pandemic to keep the public health response unhampered. The company said in a statement that it still has no plans to enforce the patent in low- and middle-income countries. But it is going after Pfizer and BioNTech in the hope that the latter “respects its intellectual property.” “Moderna did not assert its patents earlier so as not to distract attention from efforts to end the pandemic as soon as possible,” the company said in the filing.
The lawsuit isn’t expected to have a major impact on vaccine availability — Moderna said it doesn’t want to take the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, which is sold under the brand name Comirnaty, from the market. Moderna’s chief legal officer, Shannon Thyme Klinger, said in a statement that it is seeking compensation from Pfizer and BioNTech against Moderna for Comirnaty’s continued use of Moderna’s patented technology.
Moderna is not claiming compensation from the vaccine it sold to the U.S. government. But the U.S. is planning to stop paying for COVID-19 vaccines, and they will be sold through normal commercial channels in the future.
Both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech have developed COVID-19 vaccines using mRNA technology. The vaccine introduces tiny fragments of the coronavirus‘ genetic material into the body, allowing it to produce antibodies.
In legal filings, Moderna claims that Pfizer/BioNTech copied two elements of its mRNA vaccine. The first is a chemical modification of mRNA that prevents the body from attacking the vaccine before it works in the body. mRNA vaccines that do not include this modification, such as the COVID-19 vaccine made by German company CureVac, are far less effective.
The second is the viral bits that the vaccine trains the body to recognize — both companies’ vaccines target the full coronavirus spike protein, the part of the virus that penetrates human cells. Moderna said in its legal filings that it holds a patent for a full-spike protein vaccine based on research on MERS, a different coronavirus.
Pfizer/BioNTech was also sued by CureVac for patent infringement. Moderna faces lawsuits itself as it sues other companies — biotechs Arbutus Biopharma and Genevant Sciences are suing them over a method for packaging mRNA and delivering it into the body, and another biotech, Alnylam, is suing Pfizer over a similar technology /BioNTech and Moderna.