(Photo: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)
Moderna announced on Friday that it is suing Pfizer and BioNTech, claiming that the companies plagiarized its mRNA technology, the ground-breaking immunization technique used in Moderna's and Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccines.
Moderna claimed it filed patents between 2010 and 2016 that covered "foundational mRNA technology," which Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, allegedly stole without authorization in order to create its COVID-19 vaccine.
"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," Moderna Chief Executive Officer Stéphane Bancel, in a press release said. "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."
The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was "based on BioNTech's proprietary mRNA technology and developed by both BioNTech and Pfizer," according to a statement made to CNET by Pfizer. Despite not having fully read the complaint yet, the company and BioNTech stated they are "surprised" by the lawsuit.
"We remain confident in our intellectual property supporting the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and will vigorously defend against the allegations of the lawsuit," Pfizer said.
In the U.S., Moderna, Pfizer, and BioNTech have been vying for regulatory approval side by side. One week before Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine in December 2020, the US Food and Drug Administration approved Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine for use in emergencies. One day after Pfizer and BioNTech announced their submission, Moderna submitted their application to the FDA this week for its new COVID-19 booster, which targets the BA.5 subvariant of omicron.
Our cells are instructed by the mRNA vaccines on how to mount an immunological defense against a virus. Pfizer and BioNTech, according to Moderna, duplicated two crucial aspects of mRNA technology, including chemical modification and encoding for the spike protein, on which Moderna claimed to have started working in 2010.
However, Moderna said it expects the companies to "compensate Moderna" for continued use of the vaccine outside of lower- or middle-income countries where vaccine supply is no longer a concern. Moderna said it is not requesting that Pfizer and BioNTech pull their vaccine off the market anywhere or stop its future sales.
Moderna stated that it is not suing the other vaccine manufacturers in 92 low- and middle-income nations, nor is it suing Pfizer for sales where the U.S. government would be liable for damages or for actions taken before Mar. 8, 2022.
