Pharmaceutical heavyweights Pfizer and BioNTech have agreed to pay a total of $740 million to Germany’s CureVac and the UK’s GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to settle long-running patent disputes in the United States over the development of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines.
CureVac, the German biotech firm that pioneered early mRNA technology, announced the settlement on Friday, confirming that the agreement also includes future royalty payments from U.S. sales of COVID-19 vaccines.
As part of the deal, CureVac will grant Pfizer and BioNTech a non-exclusive license to use its mRNA technology for COVID-19 and influenza products in the United States. CureVac originally filed a lawsuit against BioNTech in 2022, alleging that its patents were infringed in the development of the highly successful Comirnaty vaccine, created in partnership with Pfizer.
Under the terms, GSK is set to receive $370 million in addition to a 1% royalty on U.S. sales of flu, COVID-19, and related combination mRNA vaccines. GSK has been collaborating with CureVac on infectious disease vaccines since 2020.
“This agreement secures CureVac’s intellectual property rights while enabling continued innovation and access in the vaccine space,” the company said in a statement.
The legal settlement precedes BioNTech’s planned acquisition of CureVac, announced in June, and helps clear the path for the takeover. However, both firms remain engaged in ongoing patent disputes in Germany, though CureVac expressed hope the U.S. agreement could serve as a template for resolving other cases.
In a separate German legal case, a court had previously ruled in favor of U.S. pharma giant Moderna, stating that BioNTech and Pfizer had infringed one of its patents in the process of producing their COVID-19 jab.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was the first mRNA vaccine approved in the West and played a key role in the global fight against COVID-19. Unlike traditional vaccines, mRNA-based vaccines teach the body’s cells to produce viral proteins, sparking an immune response without the need to cultivate the virus in laboratories.
CureVac’s attempt to produce an effective COVID-19 mRNA vaccine during the pandemic fell short of approval, but the company has continued to pursue mRNA innovation and legal protection of its technologies.
