Pfizer, BioNTech sue by Moderna over COVID-19 vaccines Moderna, a biotechnology company pioneering messenger RNA therapeutics and vaccines has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Pfizer and BioNTech in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts and the Regional Court of Düsseldorf in Germany. Moderna believes that Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty infringes patents Moderna filed between 2010 and 2016 covering Moderna’s foundational mRNA technology. Moderna, in a press statement posted on its website on Friday, said the groundbreaking technology was critical to the development of Moderna’s own mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, Spikevax. “Pfizer and BioNTech copied this technology, without Moderna’s permission, to make Comirnaty,” the statement read in part. “We are filing these lawsuits to protect the innovative mRNA technology platform that we pioneered, invested billions of dollars in creating, and patented during the decade preceding the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Moderna Chief Executive Officer Stéphane Bancel. “This foundational platform, which we began building in 2010, along with our patented work on coronaviruses in 2015 and 2016, enabled us to produce a safe and highly effective COVID-19 vaccine in record time after the pandemic struck.