Moderna fends off Alnylam US patent lawsuit over COVID shots, for now
By Blake Brittain
Oct 2 (Reuters) -Alnylam Pharmaceuticals ALNY.O admitted defeat, for now, in a lawsuit in Delaware federal court that accused Moderna's MRNA.O blockbuster COVID-19 vaccines of infringing one of its patents.
Alnylam and Moderna told U.S. District Judge Colm Connolly in a joint filing on Wednesday that Alnylam could not win its case after the judge interpreted part of the patent in a way that favored Moderna.
The companies asked the court to dismiss the case without prejudice and allow Alnylam to refile the lawsuit if an appeals court disagrees with Connolly's interpretation.
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Alnylam appealed a similar ruling for Moderna in a related lawsuit last year, the first of Alnylam's two lawsuits against the vaccine maker. Alnylam has also filed related patent lawsuits over Pfizer's COVID-19 shots that are still ongoing.
Attorneys and spokespeople for Alnylam did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the filing on Wednesday. A spokesperson for Moderna said that the dismissal "supports what we have said from the very beginning of this litigation – Moderna’s vaccine products do not infringe any valid patents."
Alnylam first sued Moderna and Pfizer for patent infringement in 2022 over their alleged use of its lipid nanoparticles (LNP) in their vaccines to deliver genetic material into the body. The lawsuits are part of a web of patent disputes between biotech companies over technology used in the COVID-19 shots, which includes a lawsuit filed by Moderna against Pfizer later that year.
Alnylam filed a new lawsuit against the companies last year over the patent at issue in the Wednesday filing. The filing said that the companies agreed that Alnylam could not prove Moderna's shots worked in the same way as its patented technology based on Connolly's ruling last month.
The case is Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc v. Moderna Inc, U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, No. 1:23-cv-00580.
For Alnylam: William Gaede, Sarah Columbia, Sarah Fischer, Ian Brooks and Bhanu Sadasivan of McDermott Will & Emery
For Moderna: Elizabeth Flanagan, Chad Shear, Geoffrey Biegler, Elizabeth Stameshkin and Dean Fanelli of Cooley
Read more:
Alnylam files patent infringement lawsuits against Pfizer, Moderna
Pfizer, Moderna hit with new Alnylam patent lawsuits over COVID-19 vaccines
Alnylam to appeal ruling on patents related to Moderna's COVID vaccines
Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington
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