Pharmaceutical firm tied to 2024 candidate Ramaswamy tangled in lawsuits on COVID vax technology
Genevant Sciences, which has sued Pfizer and Moderna, is mostly owned by Roivant Sciences, founded by Vivek Ramaswamy.
A pharmaceutical company tied to 2024 GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is involved in lawsuits over COVID-19 mRNA vaccine technology.
Genevant Sciences, a portfolio company of Roivant Sciences, is suing Moderna and Pfizer over patented COVID vaccine technology while also being sued by another biotech company linked with Pfizer’s vaccine.
Ramaswamy founded Roivant Sciences, and was CEO of the biotech research company from 2014 until 2021. However, he is not involved in the lawsuit.
Genevant Sciences, along with partner Arbutus Biopharma Corporation, sued Moderna in February 2022 over alleged patent infringement, followed by a lawsuit against Pfizer and BioNTech in April this year.
MRNA is similar to RNA, short for Ribonucleic acid, which is present in all living cells and that has structural similarities to DNA.
The lawsuit against Moderna alleges that the pharmaceutical and biotech company infringed on an Arbutus patent for a lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery platform for the vaccine, which was necessary “to safeguard the mRNA and deliver it into cells.” The plaintiffs allege that the infringement occurred when Moderna didn’t request a license to use the LNP patents for COVID.
Genevant licenses Arbutus’ LNP technology.
Arbutus and Genevant “do not seek an injunction or otherwise to impede the sale, manufacture or distribution” of the vaccine, according to a press release. Instead, the companies “seek only fair compensation for the use of patented technology they developed with great effort and at great expense, without which Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine would not have been successful.”
In March this year, a federal court judge declined to partially dismiss the case against Moderna, allowing it to continue.
Moderna didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
In the April lawsuit against Pfizer and BioNTech for patent infringement, Arbutus and Genevant alleged that the companies “never paid Plaintiffs to use” the LNP technologies for the COVID vaccine.
Pfizer and BioNTech didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/pharmaceutical-company-tied-ramaswamy-suing-facing-lawsuits-over-covid-19