BioNTech sued by UPenn over 19 vaccine patent royalties
By Blake Brittain
Aug 6 (Reuters) -The University of Pennsylvania has sued German biotechnology firm BioNTech 22UAy.DE in Pennsylvania federal court, accusing the company of underpaying royalties for patents covering Penn technology used in BioNTech and Pfizer's PFE.N COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty.
The lawsuit, filed on Monday, said that BioNTech owes the school a greater share of its worldwide vaccine sales for using "foundational" messenger RNA (mRNA) inventions developed by Penn professors and Nobel Prize winners Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman.
Spokespeople for BioNTech did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the complaint. A spokesperson for Penn said the school is "seeking full royalty payments under patent licensing agreements that enabled BioNTech to develop its marketed COVID vaccine."
Pfizer is not a defendant.
The complaint adds to a web of patent lawsuits filed against BioNTech, Pfizer, Moderna and others over technology used in their blockbuster COVID-19 vaccines.
Penn's lawsuit said that BioNTech received a sublicense to the school's technology through another company in 2017, which it later used to develop Comirnaty with Pfizer.
Pfizer made $11.2 billion from sales of Comirnaty last year, according to a company report.
The lawsuit said that BioNTech has only been paying royalties for shots "sold into" countries where the school owns a patent, but owes royalties for all vaccines "made" in countries where Penn has patents under their contract.
According to the university, BioNTech manufactures all of its Comirnaty shots "in countries where Penn has patents in force, triggering a royalty on all products."
"For that reason, BioNTech must pay royalties as a percentage of its entire worldwide sales and not, as it has done to date, on only a portion," Penn said.
Penn asked the court for monetary damages and an order forcing BioNTech to comply with their contract.
The case is Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania v. BioNTech SE, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, No. 2:24-cv-03801.
For Penn: Jake Holdreith, Christopher Pinahs and Manleen Singh of Robins Kaplan
For BioNTech: attorney information not yet available
Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington
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