Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines violated laws, German court rules

U.S. Pfizer and German BioNTech had violated Moderna’s messenger RNA technology patent in developing their COVID-19 vaccine, a German court found Wednesday.

Siding with Moderna, an American pharmaceutical firm that brought the case, the court in Duesseldorf said BioNTech and Pfizer would have to provide estimates of how much they had profited from breaking the patent as well as provide “appropriate compensation”.

Pfizer and BioNTech did not deny using mRNA technology that had been patented by Moderna for the development of their Comirnaty COVID-19 vaccine, but argued that a 2020 Moderna press release had allowed them to do so, with permission only being rescinded once the World Health Organization declared the pandemic over in 2023.

Moderna, however, persuaded the court that permission had been rescinded as of March 2022 in a separate press release.

First ever mRNA vaccine

In 2020, Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine became the first ever mRNA vaccine approved for widespread use.

Unlike traditional vaccines, mRNA vaccines contain genetic materials that instruct human cells to make proteins typical of the targeted virus. Traditional vaccines contain some form of the dead or inactivated target virus.

Since the virus need not be grown in the lab, mRNA vaccines can in theory be developed at scale more quickly than traditional vaccines.

Moderna successfully persuaded the court that patents it had filed over the period 2010 to 2016 were valid and relevant to the case.

The ruling can be appealed.