Sometimes a few sentences are enough to weigh down a share price. The news that the US vaccine manufacturer Moderna had filed a lawsuit against Biontech and Pfizer in a court in the US and in Düsseldorf caused price falls. The two are said to have infringed Moderna’s patents for their Comirnaty corona vaccine. Moderna filed these patents between 2010 and 2016. These are fundamental technologies. Biontech and Pfizer violated these patents to develop their vaccine, the accusation said.
Like Biontech’s vaccine, Moderna’s is based on mRNA. Put simply, the body receives instructions from part of the coronavirus to build up its own defenses.
“We are filing these lawsuits to protect the innovative mRNA technology platform that we pioneered, invested billions of dollars in and patented in the decade leading up to the Covid-19 pandemic,” Moderna CEO Stephane said Bancel quoted in a statement.
Curevac has already sued the competitor for patent infringement
It is not the first patent lawsuit against Biontech. At the beginning of July, the German rival Curevac, which still has no corona vaccine on the market, filed a lawsuit against Biontech at the Düsseldorf Regional Court and demanded “fair compensation for the violation of a number of Curevac’s intellectual property rights”. Even then, Biontech boss Ugur Sahin had declared that his work was “original and we will vigorously defend it against all allegations of patent infringement.”
Moderna announced in autumn 2020 that it did not want to enforce patent rights in order to enable low- and middle-income countries in particular to develop a vaccine. Last March, however, Moderna said that companies like Biontech and Pfizer are expected to respect patents and that Moderna is willing to grant commercially reasonable licenses if requested. Biontech and Pfizer would not have made such a request. Knowing that continued access to “life-saving vaccines” is important, Moderna’s goal is not to drive Comirnaty out of the market or prevent future sales. It also does not seek compensation for vaccines that Pfizer sold to 92 low- and middle-income countries, nor for sales prior to March 8.
Moderna believes Biontech and Pfizer are infringing on two properties of the vaccine that are critical to its success. Initially, Biontech and Pfizer started the clinical phase with four vaccine candidates. Later, Moderna explained on Friday that they decided on the candidate “with exactly the same chemical modification as Spikevax”, Moderna’s vaccine.