Moderna sues Pfizer for allegedly copying COVID-19 vaccine technology

Moderna, a biotechnology company, is filing a patent infringement lawsuit against Pfizer and BioNTech for allegedly copying its mRNA technology to make their COVID-19 vaccine, Comirnaty.

The pharmaceutical giant said its technology was copied without its permission.

In a statement published on its website Friday, Moderna said the “groundbreaking technology” which was pioneered long before the COVID-19 pandemic was critical to the development of its vaccine called Spikevax.

It noted that the lawsuit would be filed Friday in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts and the Regional Court of Düsseldorf in Germany.

“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,” the statement quoted the Moderna Chief Executive Officer, Stéphane Bancel.

“This foundational platform, which we began building in 2010, along with our patented work on coronaviruses in 2015 and 2016, enabled us to produce a safe and highly effective COVID-19 vaccine in record time after the pandemic struck.”

Both Comirnaty and Spikevax are COVID-19 vaccines authorised for emergency use and approved by US Food and Drug (FDA).

According to the FDA, Comirnaty is for active immunisation to prevent COVID-19 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in individuals 12 years of age and older while Spikevax is for individuals 18 years of age and older.

Both Comirnaty and Spikevax are FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccines authorised for emergency use.

Patent infringement

Explaining further, Moderna said it believes Pfizer and BioNTech copied two key features of Moderna’s patented technologies which it said are critical to the success of mRNA vaccines.

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The statement further read in part: “When COVID-19 emerged, neither Pfizer nor BioNTech had Moderna’s level of experience with developing mRNA vaccines for infectious diseases, and they knowingly followed Moderna’s lead in developing their own vaccine.

“First, Pfizer and BioNTech took four different vaccine candidates into clinical testing, which included options that would have steered clear of Moderna’s innovative path. Pfizer and BioNTech, however, ultimately decided to proceed with a vaccine that has the same exact mRNA chemical modification to its vaccine as Spikevax.

“Second, and again despite having many different options, Pfizer and BioNTech copied Moderna’s approach to encode for the full-length spike protein in a lipid nanoparticle formulation for a coronavirus.”