ARTICLE · 05 OCTOBER 2022

COVID-19: Is The IP Truce Over?

ENS

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The COVID-19 pandemic brought with it something of an IP truce, with major pharmaceutical companies seemingly happy to co-exist.

South AfricaIntellectual Property

Joanne Van Harmelen

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The COVID-19 pandemic brought with it something of an IP truce, with major pharmaceutical companies seemingly happy to co-exist. However, it now seems that a battle is about to commence with three of the major players in the COVID-19 vaccine industry now in dispute.

Moderna v Pfizer/BioNTech

Moderna

Moderna, a company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (and founded as recently as 2010) was an early developer of the mRNA technology. The company's vaccine comprises mRNA that expresses a viral protein and generates an immune response training the body to fight off a real virus when it comes into contact with it.

Moderna obtained approval for its vaccine in a matter of months when the US Food and Drug Administration, ("FDA") granted "emergency use authorisation" for the company's COVID-19 vaccine in December 2020. At the same time, the FDA had already also granted authorisation to Pfizer/BioNTech (just one week earlier).

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