Moderna Pharmaceuticals is suing Pfizer and its German partner for alleged patent infringement in the development of the first COVID-19 vaccine approved in the US.
The lawsuit, which seeks undetermined monetary damages, alleges they copied technology that Moderna had developed years before.
Moderna chief executive Stephane Bancel stated: “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.”
Shannon Thyme Klinger Moderna’s chief legal officer added: “We believe that Pfizer and BioNTech unlawfully copied Moderna’s inventions, and they have continued to use them without permission,”
Moderna Inc and Pfizer Inc partnership and BioNTech were two of the first groups to develop a vaccine for COVID.
Pfizer/BioNTech, according to Moderna, duplicated mRNA technology that it had patented between 2010 and 2016, far before COVID-19 was released in 2019.
Early in the epidemic, Moderna stated that it would not enforce its COVID patents to assist others in developing their own vaccines, but in March of this year, it stated that it expected businesses such as Pfizer and BioNTech to respect its intellectual property rights.
