Moderna secures partial victory in Covid vaccine legal fight

Moderna has secured a partial victory in its intellectual property battle with Pfizer and BioNTech over the development of Covid-19 vaccines, after a London court found one of the US company’s patents had been infringed.

The High Court in London on Tuesday found that Pfizer and BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine infringed a patent that Moderna filed in 2011 covering a part of the mRNA platform, which was central to the jabs.

The court also ruled that a pledge made by Moderna not to enforce its intellectual property rights while the pandemic continued was “at most a temporary forbearance” and had later been “validly retracted” by the US company.

The judgment means that Moderna could be entitled to damages for UK sales of Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine from March 8 2022, when it withdrew the pledge.

However, in a mixed ruling, another of Moderna’s patents — specific to respiratory virus vaccines based on mRNA technology — was found to be “invalid”, a finding that in effect upholds Pfizer and BioNTech’s right to use a similar innovation.

All three companies said they disagreed with aspects of the ruling. Pfizer and BioNTech said they would appeal, and Moderna said it would consider an appeal.

The London ruling is the latest development in intellectual property battles that companies are fighting around the world over who pioneered the vaccine technology that saved millions of lives in the pandemic.

Parallel proceedings are running in Europe and the US over mRNA, which has helped generate billions in revenues for the pharmaceuticals industry.

The judgment on the 2011 patent aligns with a recent ruling by the European Patent Office, but clashes with a separate decision in the Netherlands, in a sign of varying conclusions over the case from courts in different jurisdictions.

England is the first to have ruled on the validity of Moderna’s pledge not to enforce its patent.

Moderna, Pfizer and BioNTech were three of the biggest corporate winners from the pandemic as their jabs were the widest used across the world.

The vaccines were the first to use mRNA technology. Messenger ribonucleic acid is one of the body’s building blocks, a genetic code that instructs cells to create proteins.

The 2011 patent that the High Court found Pfizer and BioNTech infringed relates to how mRNA treatments can be tweaked to reduce the immune response when it is introduced into cells. This could prove influential for the development of future mRNA-based products, independent lawyers said when the proceedings began in London in April.

The other Moderna patent, which was found invalid, related to respiratory virus vaccines based on mRNA technology, and is more specific to Covid-19 treatments.

Moderna said it was “pleased” that the High Court had “recognised the innovation of Moderna scientists” through its finding that one of its patents had been infringed. However, it said it disagreed “with some other aspects” of the decision and would consider appealing.

Pfizer and BioNTech said they were pleased that one of Moderna’s patents had been found invalid but were “disappointed” in the court’s decision to uphold the validity of another. “We continue to believe that this second patent is invalid and will seek to appeal this decision.”