'The Top Line': What the patent fight between Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech means, negotiating vaccine contracts via text messages and this week's news 

Last August, Moderna filed a lawsuit against Pfizer and its COVID-19 vaccine partner, BioNTech. Moderna claims that the partners copied its mRNA technology and infringed its vaccine patents. Pfizer wasn’t going to sit back and take that. In September, the pharma giant dismissed the claims and accused Moderna of trying to rewrite the pandemic story to place itself in the “single, starring role,” the company’s attorneys wrote in a scathing countersuit.   

Kevin Noonan, Ph.D., is an intellectual property lawyer. He spoke with Fierce Pharma staff writer Zoey Becker to discuss what is likely to be the most significant patent fight from the pandemic era.   

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The Top Line is produced by senior multimedia producer Teresa Carey and managing editor Querida Anderson with editor-in-chief Ayla Ellison and senior editors Annalee Armstrong, Ben Adams, Conor Hale and Eric Sagonowsky. The sound engineer is Caleb Hodgson. The stories are by all our “Fierce” journalists. Like and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts.

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