Zoff about patents in court
Curevac demands a share in Biontech billions
08/15/2023 5:29 p.m
It’s about a lot of money: The vaccine developer Curevac accuses its successful competitor Biontech of having violated Curevac patents during vaccine production. Biontech denies that. Now the dispute ends up before the district court of Düsseldorf.
In the race to develop a corona vaccine, Curevac lost to German competitor Biontech. The Tübingen-based company is now fighting before the Düsseldorf district court for a share of the billions in revenue that Biontech achieved with vaccine production. During the oral hearing this Tuesday, Curevac referred to the fact that Biontech had violated Curevac’s patents and utility models in the development of its Covid 19 vaccine Comirnaty.
In the process, two German vaccine pioneers meet with very different fates. Biontech made billions in sales with its Covid 19 vaccine in the Corona years. On the other hand, after a promising start, Curevac failed to launch a corona vaccine itself in time. However, the company claims to have developed enabling technologies that would have been instrumental in the development of safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines. Curevac had already filed a lawsuit against Biontec in July last year and demanded “fair compensation” for the violation of a number of its intellectual property rights that were used in the production of the Corona vaccine by Biontech and Pfizer. However, the company did not name a specific amount.
Biontech rejects the allegations. The company’s work is “original”. Immediately after the lawsuit became known, the company said it would “resolutely defend itself against all allegations of patent infringement”. Biontech developed Comirnaty in 2020, making it possible to vaccinate more than a billion people worldwide. This has prevented millions of serious illnesses, hospital stays and deaths.
In the USA, too, the dispute between the vaccine manufacturers is now occupying the courts. Specifically, the oral hearing on Tuesday dealt with two patents and three utility models with which Curevac had protected its developments. In four of the cases, the Düsseldorf district court wants to announce a decision on September 28th. In the fifth case – a patent dispute – the Düsseldorf court initially wants to wait for a decision by the Federal Patent Court announced for mid-December. There, Biontech applied for the Curevac patent to be declared null and void. In this dispute, the Düsseldorf court will therefore not announce its decision until December 28th.
Biontech makes billions in profit
A look at the Biontech balance sheets of the past few years shows that the dispute is about a lot of money. In 2021, the vaccine manufacturer posted a net profit of 10.3 billion euros, and in 2022 the bottom line was 9.4 billion euros. However, Biontech is currently feeling the consequences of the now significantly lower business with Covid-19 vaccines. In the first six months of this year, profits collapsed from EUR 5.37 billion to just EUR 312 million.
But Biontech expects more income again in autumn and winter. In September, Biontech hopes to launch a revised Covid-19 vaccine adapted to Corona variant XBB.1.5, a subvariant of Omicron. CEO Ugur Sahin said recently that he could be available for the upcoming autumn/winter season. Biontech and Pfizer submitted the approval applications to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the US agency FDA for the adapted vaccine for people aged six months and older in June.
Meanwhile, Curevac is working with its British partner GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to develop a new second-generation corona vaccine. The company recently announced the start of a phase 2 trial for the vaccine. Curevac development manager Myriam Mendila emphasized that the rapid pace of vaccine development during the pandemic had “left significant opportunities for improvement”.