Two weeks ago, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) filed proceedings against the makers of the COVID-19 SPIKEVAX® vaccine, Moderna, Inc in the US Federal District Court in Delaware alleging that Moderna has infringed its patents relating to messenger RNA (mRNA) technology. GSK filed a similar suit in April against Pfizer and BioNTech over their COMIRNATY® COVID-19 vaccine.
The day after GSK filed proceedings against Moderna, Northwestern University also filed proceedings against Moderna accusing the company of infringing Northwestern-developed lipid nanoparticle (LNP) IP.
This comes shortly after the Bio-Science Law Review published a deep dive into the complex web of patent litigation that has arisen over mRNA technology, ‘The role of patents in protecting investment in mRNA technology’, written by members of our team, Suzy Madar, Vicky Zhang, and myself.
The discovery of mRNA and the development of mRNA vaccines has led to significant growth in the size of the mRNA therapeutics market, which reached USD 57.7 Billion in 2023 and is tipped to grow to USD 72.7 billion by 2032. The disputes that have arisen over infringement of mRNA technology patents, as well as over inventorship and entitlement, also provide important lessons about the risk that patent disputes may present to ensuring a return on investment in this technology.
You can read our full-length article in in Lawtext Publishing’s latest issue of the Bio-Science Law Review or you can read our shortened version here on KWM.com.
Featured image: ‘MicroRNA and mRNA visualization in differentiating C1C12 cells’, Ryan Jeffs, Wikimedia Commons, 19 September 2012, CC BY-SA 3.0, (cropped).
