Moderna Suing Pfizer

Responding to news that Moderna is suing Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech for patent infringement in the development of the first Covid-19 vaccine, Maaza Seyoum, Global South Convenor of the People’s Vaccine Alliance, said:

“Pfizer and Moderna applied enormous pressure to stop governments from waiving intellectual property rules on COVID-19 vaccines, tests, and treatments. What they wanted was to ensure extraordinary profits and stop low and middle-income countries from making vaccines. But the painful irony is that the companies are now embroiled in a bitter intellectual property dispute with each other.

“Civil society groups have long feared that Moderna would enforce its broad patents to derail programs aimed at sharing mRNA technology, like the World Health Organization’s technology transfer hub in South Africa. If Moderna is willing to sue another US pharmaceutical giant with deep pockets, then governments must step in to protect vaccine efforts in lower-income countries from cases like this.

“If anyone should be suing big pharma, it’s the millions who have needlessly lost loved ones to COVID-19 while Moderna and Pfizer sold doses to the highest bidder.

“These vaccines were developed with an unprecedented injection of public funding, building on decades of public research. Moderna even benefitted from the right to override patents to develop their vaccine. They aren’t Moderna’s or Pfizer’s; they are the people’s vaccines”

/Ends
Notes

This is a reaction to news that Moderna is suing Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech for patent infringement in the development of the first Covid-19 vaccine: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-62691102

Moderna was among a small number of firms quietly granted the power to seize patent rights during the early days of the pandemic: https://theintercept.com/2022/08/23/covid-vaccine-patents-moderna-big-pharma-section-1498/

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