In a high-stakes legal battle unfolding in the London High Court, pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Moderna are facing off over the use of life-saving mRNA technology in their respective Covid-19 vaccines. The dispute, which has also sparked parallel litigations in various countries, centers on Moderna’s claims that Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech infringed its patents in developing the Comirnaty vaccine. Moderna alleges that it is owed compensation for products manufactured after March 2022. Pfizer and BioNTech vehemently deny the infringement accusations and are seeking to revoke Moderna’s two patents, arguing that they are invalid.
The highly anticipated trial, expected to span three and a half weeks, commenced on Tuesday before Judge Mr Justice Meade. The initial focus will be on one of the disputed patents, with the second patent expected to be examined next week. The proceedings will also include a hearing on Moderna’s “patent pledge,” which the company initially made in 2020, vowing not to enforce its Covid-19 related patents during the pandemic. However, Moderna later updated the pledge, asserting its expectations that its intellectual property would be respected in non-low and middle-income countries where vaccine supply was no longer a barrier to access.
Pfizer and BioNTech’s lead counsel, Tom Mitcheson KC, stated that Moderna is seeking damages, but not an injunction, acknowledging the public interest in maintaining the availability of Comirnaty vaccines. Mitcheson emphasized that the challenge to the patent’s validity hinges on an alleged “lack of novelty” in relation to earlier work conducted by researchers Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman at the University of Pennsylvania in the US. The court was informed that this research garnered the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2023 for its critical role in developing effective mRNA vaccines against Covid-19.
Moderna’s legal representative, Piers Acland KC, refuted the rival developers’ arguments as “not credible,” asserting that it does not diminish the remarkable contributions of Professors Kariko and Weissman to acknowledge Moderna’s own significant contributions. The Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines were among the first to receive approval for use in the UK, targeting the spike protein that enables the virus to enter human cells. Both vaccines employ synthetic messenger RNA (mRNA), a genetic material that instructs the body to produce a small amount of the spike protein, triggering an immune response.
