Moderna is taking Germany’s Pfizer and BioNTech to court, claiming the rival drugmakers copied its technology to develop its COVID-19 vaccine.
In documents filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts and Germany, Moderna claims that Pfizer and BioNTech violated its intellectual property rights over key parts of its messenger RNA technology, which was patented between 2010 and 2016
“We believe that Pfizer and BioNTech illegally copied Moderna’s inventions and have continued to use them without permission,” Shannon Thyme Klinger, chief legal officer of Moderna, a Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech startup, said in a statement on Friday .
Pfizer had not yet reviewed the lawsuit and could not yet comment on the filing, the company said in an email. BioNTech did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Two-shot vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer use mRNA technology to help patients fight the coronavirus. These vaccines work by injecting a genetic code for the spike protein that covers the surface of the coronavirus.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. This is a developing story…
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