Franz-Werner Haas, CureVac CEO (AP Images)

Left be­hind at the Covid vac­cine start­ing line, Cure­Vac files suit against BioN­Tech over megablock­buster IP claims

BioN­Tech and their Big Phar­ma part­ners at Pfiz­er hand­i­ly beat Ger­many’s Cure­Vac to the mar­ket with a megablock­buster mR­NA vac­cine to fight Covid-19. But Cure­Vac — still work­ing on that front — says their Ger­man ri­val on­ly got there af­ter pick­ing up some of its IP along the way.

And now they want a cut.

Cure­Vac’s first en­try in the race to de­vel­op an mR­NA vac­cine floun­dered in the clin­ic, miss­ing the bar on ef­fi­ca­cy af­ter BioN­Tech’s ri­val was al­ready deeply en­trenched in the mar­ket. Now they say that while they won’t in­ter­fere with the sale or dis­tri­b­u­tion of the BioN­Tech/Pfiz­er vac­cine Comir­naty, they want “fair com­pen­sa­tion” for the al­leged in­fringe­ment of a range of their patents.

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