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Moderna is suing Pfizer and its spouse BioNTech for patent infringement, alleging they copied their generation to expand their COVID-19 vaccine.
When filing lawsuits in the U. S. In the U. S. -Germany and Germany on Friday, Moderna said it believes the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine violates the patented generation of mRNA that began appearing years before the pandemic hit.
Moderna accused Pfizer and BioNTech of copying its “revolutionary technology” permit to expand its own coronavirus vaccine.
“Pfizer and BioNTech submitted another 4 vaccine applicants for clinical trials, which included features that would have strayed from Moderna’s cutting-edge path,” the company said in a press release Friday.
“Pfizer and BioNTech, however, regardless, made the decision to continue with a vaccine that has exactly the same chemical mRNA amendment as [Moderna’s vaccine] Spikevax. “
Moderna said its scientists began working with the generation in 2010 and claimed it became the first company to test the generation in human trials five years later.
“Again, despite many other options, Pfizer and BioNTech copied Moderna’s technique to encode the full-length spike protein into lipid nanoparticle formulas for a coronavirus,” the company added. “Moderna scientists developed this technique when they created a vaccine. “opposed to the coronavirus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) years before COVID-19 appeared. “
A Pfizer spokesman told Fortune on Friday that Moderna’s trial was unexpected.
“Pfizer/BioNTech has not yet fully investigated the complaint, but we are surprised by the litigation given that the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was based on BioNTech’s proprietary mRNA generation and evolved through BioNTech and Pfizer,” they said.
“We remain confident in our intellectual assets supporting the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and will vigorously oppose the allegations in the lawsuit. “
Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said Friday that the company is suing “the cutting-edge mRNA generation platform we launched, invested billions of dollars in creation, and patented in the decade before the COVID-19 pandemic. “
He added that Moderna is also its generation of mRNA to expand drugs against infectious diseases such as HIV and noncommunicable diseases such as cancer.
In October 2020, before any COVID vaccine is used outside of clinical trials, Moderna pledged not to apply its COVID-19-related patents for the duration of the pandemic.
The company replaced the course in March this year, arguing that the pandemic had entered a “new phase” in which the source of vaccines no longer generated accessibility issues in many parts of the world.
At the time, Moderna said it would never apply patents in 92 low- and middle-income countries, but hoped other corporations would “respect their intellectual asset rights” in other markets. He added that he was ready to grant “commercially reasonable” licenses to use his generation if asked to do so by rival vaccine makers.
When it filed its lawsuit against Pfizer and BioNTech on Friday, Moderna said it did not seek to withdraw its COVID vaccine from the market or seek a court order to save its long-term sale.
The company also said the damages it seeks were not similar to sales in the 92 countries exempt from its patent promise, adding that it would not seek damages in which the U. S. government would seek damages in which the U. S. government would seek damages from the U. S. government. The U. S. was responsible.
All damages sought through Moderna would be related to sales that occurred after March 8, 2022, when the company replaced its patent policy on COVID vaccines.
Moderna representatives were quick to answer Fortune’s questions about the amount of damage sought through the company.
Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines have been studied for decades, but the generation was only launched for public use with the launch of COVID-19 vaccines.
The Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines use mRNA generation to trigger an immune reaction that protects receptors from the virus.
Both vaccines had efficacy rates of approximately 95% in Phase 3 clinical trials conducted in 2020. However, either was designed to combat the original strain of the virus and are less effective compared to variants that have since appeared.
All corporations rely on vaccine progression, particularly targeting the subvariants BA. 4 and BA. 5 Omicron, which are the dominant strains of the virus in the United States.
Last year, Pfizer made $37 billion from its COVID-19 vaccine.
Moderna sold $17. 7 billion worth of COVID vaccines internationally in 2021, delivering 807 million vaccines.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine obtained emergency use authorization from the U. S. FDA. Regulators granted emergency approval of Moderna’s vaccine a week later.
In the United States, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is the most widely used COVID-19 vaccine, according to Our World in Data, with Moderna in place today.
However, globally, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which does use mRNA generation, is the most widely used, according to a New York Times survey. Pfizer-BioNTech is the most widely used vaccine at the moment in the world, according to The Times, followed through Moderna.
This story originally appeared on Fortune. com