By Sam Tobin
LONDON (Reuters) – Pfizer and BioNTech have asked a London court to revoke rival Moderna’s patents on technology critical to the development of COVID-19 vaccines, as the latest stage of a global legal battle begins Tuesday.
Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech sued Moderna in the High Court in London in September 2022, seeking to revoke patents held by Moderna, which retaliated days later, alleging its patents had been infringed.
The competing lawsuits over the companies’ two vaccines, which have helped save millions of lives and made billions of dollars for the companies, are just one of many ongoing disputes around the world that focus on the technology of messenger RNA (mRNA).
Moderna claims that Pfizer and BioNTech copied mRNA advances that they had developed and patented well before the COVID-19 pandemic began in late 2019.
The American company Moderna is seeking damages for alleged infringement of its patents by Pfizer and Comirnaty, of BioNTech, in declining sales since March 2022.
Pfizer made $11.2 billion in sales from Comirnaty last year, while Moderna made $6.7 billion from its Spikevax vaccine, illustrating the potentially huge sums at stake.
Pfizer and BioNTech are, however, asking the High Court to revoke Moderna’s patents, arguing that Moderna’s developments in mRNA technology were clear improvements over previous work.
The London trials were split into three separate trials, one of which is expected to examine Moderna’s 2020 commitment not to enforce its vaccine-related patents during the pandemic that will begin next time.
Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna are also involved in parallel proceedings in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and the United States, many of which have been suspended, as well as at the European Patent Office.
(Reporting by Sam Tobin; editing by Sachin Ravikumar)
