Moderna suing Pfizer for using their tech in Covid vaccines

After Pfizer/BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine brought in US$22 billion so far this year compared to Moderna’s US$10.4 billion, Moderna is suing Pfizer, claiming they copied technology in developing their vaccines. Moderna, a decade-old company that had been pioneering mRNA technology long before Covid-19, had said at the start of the pandemic that they wouldn’t enforce related patents to help the world – especially lower-income countries – get the fastest access to vaccines.

But in March 2022, Moderna changed its tune and said, with the pandemic winding down, it wanted other companies including Pfizer to stop using its intellectual property. They said the company will seek damages for sales after March 8, 2022.

In a press release yesterday, Moderna said it was filing lawsuits against Pfizer and BioNTech in the Regional Court of Dusseldorf in Germany and US District Court in Massachusetts, seeking unspecified financial damages. They are claiming that the companies used mRNA structure intellectual property that Moderna was first to clear in human trials in 2015 after developing them since 2010. They say Pfizer had four prototypes but chose the option that used Moderna’s technology.

They also say the full-length spike protein coding for a vaccine against Middle East Respiratory Syndrome that Moderna used to develop the Covid vaccine was used by Pfizer/BioNTech as well. Pfizer says they can’t comment since they haven’t been served yet.

Moderna was founded in 2010 in Massachusetts in the US and is much younger than Pfizer which is over a century and a half old. Still, they have been at the forefront of messenger RNA technology that allowed vaccines to be tested and approved for use much faster as they function by training human cells how to fight coronavirus. Their Covid vaccine is Moderna’s only commercial product.

BioNTech was working in the same mRNA arena when it partnered with Pfizer to create a vaccine that was the first to get emergency use authorisation, just one week ahead of Moderna.

SOURCE: Bangkok Post