August 29, 2022:- Moderna sues Pfizer and BioNTech for patent violation in developing the Covid-19 vaccine, which was approved in the U.S, saying that they simulated technology that Moderna produced before the pandemic.

The lawsuit, seeking undetermined monetary damages, was being filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts and the Regional Court of Dusseldorf in Germany, Moderna said on Friday.

“We are filing these lawsuits to protect the innovative mRNA technology platform that we pioneered, invested billions of dollars, and patented in the decade preceding the Covid-19 pandemic,” Moderna Chief Executive Stephane Bancel said in the statement.

Moderna Inc (MRNA.O), on its own, and the partnership of Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) and BioNTech SE (22UAy.DE) were two of the initial groups to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus.

Almost ten years old, Moderna, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, had been an innovator in the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine technology that enabled unprecedented speed in creating the Covid-19 vaccine.

An approval procedure that took years was completed in months, thanks mainly to the breakthrough in mRNA vaccines, which teach human cells how to make a protein that will initiate a resistant response.

Germany-based BioNTech had also worked in this field when it partnered with the U.S. pharma giant Pfizer.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gifted emergency use authorization for the Covid-19 vaccine first to Pfizer/BioNTech in December 2020, then one week later to Moderna.

Without permission, Moderna alleges Pfizer/BioNTech copied mRNA technology that Moderna had patented between 2010 and 2016, well before Covid-19 emerged in 2019 and exploded into global consciousness in early 2020.

Patent litigation is not unusual

in the early stages of new technology.

Pfizer and BioNTech are already facing lawsuits from other companies who say the partnership’s vaccine infringes on their patents. Pfizer/BioNTech have said they will support their patents energetically.

Germany’s CureVac, for instance, also filed a lawsuit against BioNTech in Germany in July. BioNTech replied in a statement that its work was original.

Moderna was also sued for patent violation in the United States and has an endless dispute with the U.S. National Institutes of Health over rights to mRNA technology.