Penn University Sues BioNTech In US Court Over Covid-19 Vaccine Patent Royalties

Penn University Sues BioNTech In US Court Over Covid-19 Vaccine Patent Royalties

Demands monetary damages and an order forcing the German biotechnology firm to comply with the contract

The University of Pennsylvania has sued BioNTech in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, accusing it of underpaying royalties for patents covering the Penn technology used in the Covid-19 vaccine Comirnaty of BioNTech and Pfizer.

It stated that BioNTech owed the school a greater share of its worldwide vaccine sales for using ‘foundational’ messenger RNA (mRNA) inventions developed by Penn professors and Nobel Prize winners Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman.

A spokesperson for Penn said the school was "seeking full royalty payments under patent licensing agreements that enabled BioNTech to develop its marketed vaccine."

The complaint adds to patent lawsuits against BioNTech, Pfizer, Moderna, and others over technology used in their vaccines.

The lawsuit said that in 2017, BioNTech received a sub-license to the school's technology through another company, which it used later to develop Comirnaty with Pfizer.

Meanwhile, Pfizer not a defendant, earned $11.2 billion from sales of Comirnaty last year.

Penn complained that BioNTech paid royalties only for shots ‘sold into’ countries where the school owed a patent but royalties for vaccines ‘made’ in countries where Penn has patents under their contract, are due.

The university stated that BioNTech manufactures its Comirnaty shots "in countries where Penn has patents, triggering a royalty on all products. Therefore, it must pay royalties as a percentage of its entire worldwide sales and not, as it has done to date, on only a portion.”