Pfizer (PFE.US), BioNTech (BNTX.US), and Moderna (MRNA.US) seek dismissal of Bayer’s Monsanto mRNA patent lawsuit, but the judge rejects the request

According to Zhicheng Finance APP, a federal judge in Delaware, USA, on Monday rejected requests from Pfizer (PFE.US), BioNTech (BNTX.US) and Moderna (MRNA.US). Previously, the three companies had asked for the dismissal of a lawsuit filed against them by Bayer-owned Monsanto, a German pharmaceutical giant, regarding their use of a patent related to mRNA technology.

The patent involved is US Patent No. 7,741,118, which relates to enhancing mRNA in crops to increase the expression of a pest-resistant protein. In the lawsuit, Monsanto accuses these companies of using the patent in their COVID-19 mRNA vaccines "to eliminate 'problematic' coding sequences in cell building blocks, thereby improving mRNA stability and the quantity or quality of the protein produced."

Monsanto brought the three pharmaceutical companies to court in January this year, and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.US) was also sued. The latter is accused of infringing the patent by using a DNA-based process in vaccine production.

Reportedly, Monsanto, once famous for agricultural technology, applied for patent protection for the related technology as early as 1989, and it was formally approved in 2010. In 2016, Bayer acquired Monsanto for $66 billion, and this agricultural patent, which seemed irrelevant to medicine, has now become a "weapon" for defending its rights.

Monsanto originally developed this technology to enable crops to better express pest-resistant proteins, reduce pesticide usage, and increase yields. Unexpectedly, years later, it found great use in the field of COVID-19 vaccines. During the research and development of the vaccines, scientists encountered a significant challenge: the poor stability of mRNA, which led to poor protein expression and directly affected the immune effect of the vaccine. Monsanto's technology happened to address this issue—by optimizing the coding sequences in cell building blocks, it made mRNA more stable, thereby improving both the yield and quality of proteins.

Bayer pointed out in the lawsuit that Pfizer/BioNTech had already admitted to using codon optimization technology in their mRNA products. While Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine is of the traditional viral vector type, it also requires this technology to enhance mRNA stability and ensure protein expression. It is worth noting that Pfizer/BioNTech's vaccine, Comirnaty, has already generated over $93 billion in sales, which has made Bayer's defense of its rights attract even more attention.

Moderna once argued that the patent concerns a non-patentable "law of nature." However, Judge William Bryson stated that these companies failed to prove that Patent No. 118 is invalid or that their vaccines did not infringe on the patent.