Moderna says CureVac broke agreement by suing over COVID vaccine patents
MRNA•BioNTech and CureVac responses
A BioNTech spokesperson said on Monday that the company will "respond to Moderna's statements in the appropriate forum" and "continue to vigorously defend our unwavering stance towards our innovations."
Spokespeople for Moderna did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the filing on Monday.
CureVac sued Moderna in April, alleging that Moderna copied its technology for stabilizing fragile mRNA to use in its vaccines.
The case is part of a wave of high-stakes patent lawsuits from biotech companies seeking royalties for the technology used in blockbuster COVID-19 vaccines. Moderna sued Pfizer PFE.N and BioNTech for patent infringement over their shot Comirnaty in 2022, in a lawsuit that is ongoing.
Germany-based BioNTech acquired CureVac last year. BioNTech filed a separate U.S. patent lawsuit against Moderna over its next-generation COVID-19 shot mNEXSPIKE in February.
Moderna called both lawsuits "baseless" in its Friday filing. It also said that CureVac had promised in 2023 not to sue the company over some of the patents after Moderna agreed to waive a conflict of interest for an expert witness in CureVac's patent lawsuit against BioNTech. That witness had previously testified for Moderna in a separate COVID-19 patent case.
