GSK claims Moderna infringed mRNA vaccine patents
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Dive Brief:
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GSK says it owns seven patents that “provide the foundation” for Moderna’s messenger RNA vaccine portfolio, and is now suing the biotechnology company for infringement.
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At issue is the work of a team led by Christian Mandl, who was a top official in the vaccines unit at Novartis between 2008 and 2015. According to the lawsuit, Mandl’s team discovered new formulations and methods of preparing mRNA vaccines, overcoming hurdles that had long prevented development of successful shots using the technology.
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The team filed for patents on their work in 2010. GSK then acquired that intellectual property when it took over much of Novartis’ vaccines business in 2015. Now, GSK is saying Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines infringe those patents and is seeking damages. A Moderna spokesperson said the company is aware of the suit and will defend itself against the claims.
Dive Insight:
Moderna, along with rivals Pfizer and BioNTech, achieved an astonishing public health success by developing an mRNA vaccine to fight the COVID-19 pandemic in less than a year. The companies also earned billions of dollars, sparking a series of legal battles over the patents involved.
Moderna sparred with the U.S. government over intellectual property claims early in the pandemic. In February 2022, Arbutus Biopharma and Genevant Sciences sued Moderna over patents related to the delivery of mRNA shots. Weeks later, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals sued both Moderna and Pfizer, claiming that the companies violated an Alnylam patent on lipid nanoparticle technology.
The legal battles didn’t stop there. Another mRNA specialist, CureVac, sued BioNTech in July 2022. The following month, Moderna sued Pfizer and BioNTech, which then evened the score a year later by asking the U.S. government to dismiss some of Moderna’s patents.
Earlier this year, GSK also sued Pfizer and BioNTech, alleging infringement on different patents stemming from the work of Mandl’s team and former Novartis researcher, Andrew Geall.
In the latest lawsuit, filed in federal court in Delaware, GSK says Moderna could not have succeeded in the lightning-quick development of its COVID-19 vaccine without the work of Mandl’s team.
“Moderna has repeatedly touted the speed at which it produced its original Spikevax vaccine and was later able to modify it to address new viral strains,” GSK said. “But Moderna has consistently failed to acknowledge how it applied the Mandl team’s revolutionary platform to do so.”
GSK is asking a jury to award unspecified damages and a licensing fee for its patents. It’s also seeking to be reimbursed for attorney fees and costs incurred in the lawsuit.