Pfizer, BioNTech Sued by Arbutus Biopharma and Genevant Sciences for Patent Infringement

Arbutus Biopharma Corporation (Nasdaq: ABUS) (“Arbutus”), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company leveraging its extensive virology expertise to develop novel therapeutics that target specific viral diseases, and Genevant Sciences (Genevant) today filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey against Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) and BioNTech SE (Nasdaq: BNTX) seeking damages for infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 9,504,651; 8,492,359; 11,141,378; 11,298,320; and 11,318,098 in the manufacture and sale of any COVID-19 mRNA-LNP vaccines. The patents relate to nucleic acid-lipid particles and their composition, manufacture, delivery and methods of use. The filed complaint is available on the Arbutus website.

With this suit, Arbutus and its licensee Genevant seek compensation for Pfizer’s and BioNTech’s unlicensed use of patented lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery technologies without which Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccines would not have been successful.

William Collier, President and CEO of Arbutus, stated, “During the pandemic, there was an urgent need for LNP technologies to deliver mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines to cells in the human body. We believe that Pfizer and BioNTech could not have created and manufactured effective vaccines at such an unprecedented speed without the existing, proven and patented LNP technologies owned by Arbutus and licensed to Genevant. Therefore, we are pursuing legal action against both Pfizer and BioNTech for the unlicensed use of our patented technologies in their COVID-19 vaccines.”

Read the source article at finance.yahoo.com