Battle for the Billionth Vaccine: Moderna and CureVac Clash in Patent War Over COVID Shot
American biotechnology company Moderna has stated that CureVac’s lawsuit, alleging patent infringement on mRNA vaccine technologies, is unfounded and violates a prior agreement between the companies. CureVac accuses Moderna of using its technology to create COVID-19 vaccines. The lawsuit was filed in the federal court of Delaware, Reuters reports.
According to a court document from Moderna, CureVac agreed not to sue the company in exchange for permission to involve a Moderna-associated expert as a witness in another case against BioNTech.
Moderna claims that CureVac filed the lawsuit to "harass" the company after it was subsequently acquired by BioNTech.
Furthermore, Moderna stated that its vaccines do not infringe CureVac’s patents and that the patents themselves are invalid for other reasons. In particular, the company claims that CureVac failed to provide the US Patent Office with important information during the patent application process.
Representatives of CureVac, BioNTech and Moderna did not immediately respond to requests for comment regarding Moderna’s court filing.
CureVac filed its lawsuit against Moderna in April, claiming that the company copied its technology for stabilising unstable mRNA for use in its own vaccines.
This case is part of a wave of large-scale patent disputes among biotechnology companies seeking royalties for the use of technologies applied in popular COVID-19 vaccines.
In 2022, Moderna itself filed a lawsuit against Pfizer and BioNTech over alleged patent infringement related to their Comirnaty vaccine. That case is still ongoing.
Last year, the German company BioNTech acquired CureVac. In February, BioNTech separately filed a patent lawsuit against Moderna in a US court regarding its new COVID-19 vaccine, mNEXSPIKE.
In a statement on Friday, Moderna called both lawsuits "baseless."
The company also noted that in 2023, CureVac promised not to file lawsuits against Moderna regarding certain patents after Moderna agreed to waive a conflict of interest concerning an expert in the CureVac patent case against BioNTech.
This expert had previously testified in favour of Moderna in another patent case concerning COVID-19 vaccines.
Moderna’s statement did not include specific details of the agreement between the companies.
"CureVac cannot benefit from breaching its own promise," Moderna said in the court document.
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