US biotech Promosome has filed a lawsuit in federal court in San Diego, California accusing Moderna, Pfizer and BioNTech of infringing its intellectual patent rights relating to the mRNA technology used in their Covid-19 vaccines.

Promosome alleges that the three vaccine makers have copied its method that makes mRNA vaccines “safer and significantly more effective” and is seeking a share of the royalties earned. Pfizer made nearly $37.8 billion last year from sales of its Comirnaty jab, while Moderna earned about $18.4 billion from Spikevax.

Attorney for Promosome, Bill Carmody of Susman Godfrey, commented: “Our client's cutting-edge technology has helped spare hundreds of millions of people from the harmful effects of Covid-19. Unfortunately, these big pharma companies have failed to give Promosome what it deserves."

The New York-headquartered biotech was formed in 2003 to commercialize technology developed at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. The lawsuits claim that Promosome revealed details of the technology to Moderna under a confidential disclosure agreement, with the two companies engaging between 2013 and 2016 about a potential licensing and business partnership.

While Moderna did not license the technology, Promosome said mRNA sequence reverse engineering shows that Moderna took the patented technology for Spikevax.

Promosome also shared its technology with a BioNTech scientist, but said neither BioNTech nor Pfizer pursued a license for Comirnaty, which it alleges “willfully infringes” its patent.

This latest lawsuit follows a series of patent disputes between biotech firms and the technology used in the Covid-19 jabs. Last August, Moderna filed for patent infringement against Pfizer and its partner BioNTech in a Massachusetts court. Pfizer countersued in Boston federal court in December, seeking dismissal of Moderna’s claims.