CureVac turns up the heat in ongoing patent litigation with Pfizer

CureVac has asserted another intellectual property right claim in addition to those previously filed that are part of ongoing litigation with Pfizer/BioNTech in two jurisdictions.

The case involves the intellectual property rights governing messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology that was used to develop CureVac’s Covid-19 vaccine. It alleges that patent-protected elements were used to produce and market Pfizer/BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine Comirnaty.

In July 2022, CureVac filed a patent infringement lawsuit against BioNTech and two of its subsidiaries regarding Comirnaty, seeking compensation.

Following the lawsuit in Germany, Pfizer and BioNTech filed a nullity action at the federal district court of Massachusetts to confirm that no patents were infringed upon. This led to CureVac’s counterclaim that Pfizer/BioNTech infringed on nine of its US patents.

Curevac has now added three more patents to the existing five in its ongoing litigation with BioNTech in Germany and one to its litigation in the US, as per a 13 July press release. The public hearings on the cases will take place on 15 August in Germany at the Regional Court Düsseldorf, and on a yet unknown date next year at the Eastern District of Virginia in the US.

Since October 2021, CureVac has ceased its Covid-19 vaccine development and has instead partnered with GSK to develop second-generation mRNA vaccines.

CureVac CEO Dr Alexander Zehnder said: “With the addition to the lawsuits in Germany and the US of new and highly relevant intellectual property rights, CureVac not only extends the scope of the cases in both jurisdictions but demonstrates that we continue to be at the forefront of innovation in the mRNA field.”

“As the pioneers in mRNA technology, we believe in the strength of our intellectual property portfolio, and we are confident that the relevant courts will recognise our reasonable claims to fair compensation under US and German law.”