The days of Moderna and Pfizer sharing the mRNA vaccine market, even stevens, might be over.
What happened: Moderna is suing Pfizer and BioNTech in the US and Germany (where BioNTech is based), claiming that the companies’ COVID shot infringes on patents for key elements of its messenger RNA technology that made its ‘Spikevax’ shot possible.
- A Pfizer spokesperson said the company was surprised by the lawsuit because its vaccine is based on other proprietary mRNA technology owned by BioNTech.
Why it matters: The legal clash could signal the “end of a period of unusual comity among big drugmakers, who looked past traditional rivalries and even joined forces in some cases to find medicines that could fight the coronavirus,” per The Wall Street Journal.
Catch up: As pharma giants raced to develop a vaccine in the early days of the pandemic, Moderna pledged not to be that guy who ruins the party by enforcing its intellectual property rights, but on March 7 it modified its language to apply only to lower-income countries.
- Moderna is not seeking damages for sales in 92 lower-income countries, but it does want to get paid out for what’s been sold in every other market after March 8.
- An expert on patent pledges told Bloomberg that Moderna’s original promise gives Pfizer and BioNTech a solid defence since the pandemic hasn’t ended.
What’s next: Moderna is not asking courts to pull Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine from the market, but the companies could be liable for billions in royalties on all past and future COVID vaccine sales (the company expects 2021-2022 sales to top US$65B).