US biopharmaceutical Moderna, which said it would not enforce its patent rights during the pandemic, sued Pfizer. The image is a vial of the new corona vaccine used in Italy.
On August 26, one of the two camps that succeeded in developing a new coronavirus vaccine ahead of the world, the US biopharmaceutical Moderna (Moderna) announced on August 26 that the other camp, Pfizer (Pfizer) and BioNTech (Germany) ) filed suit for infringement of the company’s patents.
Moderna has said it will not seek to remove the Pfizer-Biontech vaccine from the market or prevent future sales.
Moderna’s move to sue is symbolic of a change in the perception of vaccine-developing pharmaceutical companies about the novel coronavirus. That is, it was no longer a pandemic and began to be treated like any other existing respiratory infection.
Mani Follower of US investment bank SVB Securities said in a recent email to investors (August 26) that Moderna has filed a lawsuit, even though the World Health Organization (WHO) has yet to declare the global crisis over. He points out that the company has shown its recognition that the pandemic is virtually over.
“While we expect this patent dispute to take several years to resolve in court, the near-term impact on our stock price will be minimal.
Moderna has historically been reluctant to assert its patent rights in court during the pandemic, but the move to litigation means the company willIt has become clear that it recognizes that the pandemic is effectively over(Editor’s Note: Therefore, in the long term, we can expect a change in attitudes regarding patent rights.)
As Follower points out, Moderna announced in October 2020 that it would not enforce its patents “as long as the pandemic continues.”
However,In March 2022, the company updated its statement, saying the pandemic had entered a new phase and vaccine supply was no longer a pressing issue for most countries..
and newly92 low- and middle-income countries will no longer enforce patent rightsOn top of that, it left the possibility of filing a patent infringement lawsuit in other countries.
According to Follower’s predictions, the lawsuit is just another addition to Moderna’s long list of lawsuits, with dramatic ramifications for the company as well as the Pfizer-Biontech coalition. The possibility is low.
In fact, in February, Canadian biopharmaceutical company Arbutus Biopharma and Genevant Sciences, a subsidiary of British company Roivant Sciences, announced that a carrier ( Moderna is suing Moderna for infringing patents relating to lipid nanoparticles.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals also announced in March that it had sued Moderna and Pfizer for patent infringement related to the manufacture and sale of lipid nanoparticles.
A Pfizer spokesperson told Insider that the company has confidence in its intellectual property (IP) and will “defend vigorously in any lawsuits.”
“Pfizer Biotech (Coalition)’s new corona vaccine was jointly developed by both companies based on BioTech’s proprietary technology, so I am surprised at the lawsuit,” said a spokesperson for Pfizer.
Patent lawsuits are not uncommon in the pharmaceutical industry, especially for blockbuster drugs with breakthrough medicinal properties.
Based on the recent lawsuit, Follower makes the following predictions.
“The most likely development we can expect going forward is that Pfizer and BioNtech will pay some royalties. will not yield any particular financial benefit.”
Professor Jacob Schelcoe of the University of Illinois, who is familiar with intellectual property-related litigation in the pharmaceutical industry, told the medical media outlet STAT (August 26) that the lawsuit was “Resolution by 2024” is expected “Patent Disputes Straightforward and Straightforward”, points out that it will not be as complicated as the patent lawsuit for the genome editing technology “CRISPR/Cas9”, which won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020.
[Original:ModernaissuingPfizerandBioNTechovertheirCOVID-19vaccineHere’swhyananalystsaysthey’resignalingthe’endoftheCOVID-19pandemic’]
(Translation and editing: Chikara Kawamura)
Source: BusinessInsider
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