US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and German firm BioNTech lost Friday a court appeal in the latest step of a multi-million pound battle against US rival Moderna over the COVID-19 vaccine.

The Appeals Court in London upheld an earlier UK court decision in the long-running battle between the global pharma firms.

It found that one of the European patents held by Moderna was invalid, but that a second one had been broken by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.

“The judge made no error of law or principle” in the ruling handed down in July 2024, the Appeal Court judges wrote Friday, dismissing the appeal brought by the two companies.

Pfizer quickly said it will appeal Friday’s ruling to Britain’s Supreme Court.

“Today’s UK Court of Appeal’s decision does not change our unwavering stance that this patent is invalid,” Pfizer said in a statement. “This decision has no immediate impact on Pfizer and BioNTech.”

Pfizer and BioNTech had argued that both the patents cited by Moderna were invalid, and neither had been infringed.

Friday’s decision could have wide implications for other cases involving the huge pharma companies in the United States, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Ireland.

Moderna said in a statement it was pleased with Friday’s ruling and would “continue to pursue and enforce its patent rights globally to protect its innovative mRNA technology.”

A UK court was told last year the firms had spent £19 million ($25 million) fighting their legal battles.

In 2020, Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine became the first ever mRNA vaccine approved for widespread use, and was swiftly deployed to combat the COVID pandemic.

Scientists believe mRNA vaccines, which provoke an immune response by delivering genetic molecules containing the code for key parts of a pathogen into human cells, could be a game-changer against many diseases.

Traditional vaccines contain some form of the dead or inactivated target virus.

Since the virus need not be grown in the lab, mRNA vaccines can in theory be developed at scale more quickly than traditional vaccines.

In March, a German court in Duesseldorf also found Pfizer and BioNTech had violated a Moderna patent filed between 2010 to 2016 to make their vaccines.

It ordered they must provide estimates of how much they had profited from breaking the patent as well as provide “appropriate compensation.”

© 2025 AFP