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https://www.ft.com/content/5769f077-641e-4d37-adc6-7634c59b6d5d
In autumn 2020, as drugmakers raced to get vaccines to market in the face of the biggest public health crisis in a generation, Moderna made a bold pledge: it would not enforce its patents against rivals developing Covid-19 jabs. This year, however, almost two years after Pfizer and BioNTech beat it to the first approved mRNA jab,
Moderna fired back with a lawsuit over patents for a technology that could open the door to many more vaccines. If Moderna wins, it could gain a slice of billions of dollars in revenues from the BioNTech/Pfizer Covid jab. Perhaps more importantly, it would also signal to investors and Big Pharma that the Massachusetts-based company is primed to dominate the future mRNA market.
Stephen Reese, an intellectual property lawyer with Clifford Chance who advised Pfizer on its deal with BioNTech, said Moderna’s pledge had been made in the “heat” of the pandemic. “The Rubicon has been crossed, in a way, now that Moderna has gone out to sue over a Covid-19 vaccine,” he said. “Fundamentally, this is not a fight about Covid-19 vaccines, this is a fight and ongoing litigation about mRNA platforms.”
Sales of coronavirus shots are falling and forecast to slump further. Moderna and BioNTech are investing their proceeds in looking at ways to use messengerRNA, which delivers genetic codes into the body, in vaccines for other infectious diseases, including HIV, and in medicines such as personalised cancer treatments.
However, they are still far from market. Vaccine makers are likely to increase the price of the shots significantly as US commercial payers take over buying the jabs, which have previously been bought on government contracts. Moderna first signalled it was preparing a lawsuit in March, announcing it was “updating its patent pledge never to enforce its patents for Covid-19”. With plentiful supply of vaccines in middle- and high-income countries, the company said it now expected those outside the poorest 92 nations “using Moderna-patented technology” to respect its intellectual property.
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