Moderna has sued Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech for alleged patent infringement in the development of the first COVID-19 vaccine approved in the United States.
Gatekeepers News reports that seeking undetermined monetary damages, Mordena alleged that the technology that it had developed years before the pandemic was copied.
Moderna Chief Executive Stephane Bancel said, “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 Inc and the partnership of Pfizer Inc and BioNTech were two of the first groups to develop a vaccine for COVID-19.
Meanwhile, Moderna had been an innovator in the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine technology, which works by teaching human cells how to make a protein that will trigger an immune response.
The technology helped to speed up the approval process for the jabs – which usually takes years to complete – and enabled the vaccine to be developed so quickly.
Moderna alleged that Pfizer/BioNTech, without permission, copied mRNA technology that it had patented between 2010 and 2016, well before COVID-19 emerged in 2019.
