Who Invented Covid-19 Vaccines? Drugmakers Battle Over Patents

A high-stakes legal battle is taking shape over lucrative patent rights for Covid-19 vaccines, with drug companies pitted against each other and government and academic scientists over who invented what. The U.S. government and Moderna Inc., MRNA whose collaboration led to one of the most widely used shots, have fought over who discovered a key component and owns its rights. Meantime, Pfizer Inc. PFE and BioNTech SE, makers of another leading vaccine, are in a patent battle with a smaller company, and some analysts think they could end up facing off against Moderna. At the heart of the disputes: Who can claim to have invented important elements of the Covid-19 vaccines? Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake. If anyone succeeds in establishing a role in the discovery of the vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna would have to share with others a bigger cut of the tens of billions of dollars in vaccine sales being generated. “It’s scientific credit and money. That’s what people want,” said Jacob Sherkow, a professor who specializes in biotechnology intellectual property at the University of Illinois College of Law. “This is a major biotech invention, for which tens of billions of dollars are riding on the line.”