CureVac is adding fuel to its COVID-19 vaccine patent fire by asserting more claims against Pfizer and BioNTech in both its U.S. and German cases.
The German mRNA specialist put a tenth patent on the table in its U.S. litigation and three more to its five in Germany, expanding the scope of the disputes.
CureVac went after BioNTech in Germany last summer, starting off with four claims and adding a fifth in May. The original patents it claimed its fellow German mRNA maker stepped on related to inventions considered “essential to the design and development” of BioNTech and Pfizer’s Comirnaty, including sequence modifications and mRNA vaccine formulations, the company noted in a statement at the time.
Its lawsuit doesn’t aim to stop the production and distribution of the shot but wants recognition and royalties from past and future sales. That likely puts $500 million on the line, Berenberg Capital Markets analyst Zhiqiang Shu projected in a note to clients last July.
"We just want to have this piece of contribution to be recognized,” former CureVac CEO Franz-Werner Haas said in an interview last summer.
The new patents it asserted in its German case cover variant adapted jabs and split poly A tail mRNA vaccines.
After CureVac filed its suit in Germany, Pfizer and BioNTech beat it to the chase in the U.S. with a complaint asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts to rule against infringement claims and prevent the company from pursing further claims. In their filing, the two described “threats of a groundless patent infringement suit by a company, CureVac, who has been unable to bring to market any product to help in the fight against COVID-19.”
The company shot back with a counterclaim in May, claiming the partners stepped on nine of its patents that cover mRNA vaccine design, formulation and manufacturing. The newest patent it added to the claims relates to mRNA purification methods.
CureVac also motioned to transfer the case to the Eastern District of Virginia, which was granted. The company expects the move to “significantly accelerate” the process and likely allowing for a 2024 trial date, it said in a statement at the time.
"With the addition to the lawsuits in Germany and the U.S. 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," CEO Dr. Alexander Zehnder said in the recent statement. “We are confident that the relevant courts will recognize our reasonable claims to fair compensation under U.S. and German law."
A public hearing in the German case will take place this August in the Regional Court Düsseldorf.