Bayer reopens patent war on Covid vaccines: lawsuits against big boys over mrna technology start

The global patent war over mRNA vaccines enters a new and delicate phase. Bayer has launched a flurry of lawsuits against Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson, accusing them of infringing a proprietary technology developed decades ago by Monsanto, now part of the German group. A move that reignites the conflict over the intellectual property behind the anti-Covid vaccines and comes at a time of industrial and financial crisis for the Leverkusen-based giant. Lawsuits have been filed in several US federal courts: in Delaware against Moderna and the Pfizer-BioNTech couple, and in New Jersey against Johnson & Johnson. At the centre of the dispute is a technology patented in 1989 by Monsanto and only granted in 2010, relating to the optimisation of codon sequences to improve mRNA stability and the efficiency of protein expression. According to Bayer, this very solution was used without a licence in the development of anti-Covid vaccines.

Bayer is not asking for the vaccines to be withdrawn from the market, but is aiming for financial compensation and royalties on past and future sales. A potentially multi-billion dollar stake, considering that Pfizer-BioNTech's Comirnaty vaccine alone has generated over $93 billion in total revenues since its introduction. Moderna and BioNTech have confirmed that they are aware of the lawsuits, while Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson have made no official comments. According to Bayer, the technology now being challenged originated in agriculture to increase the expression of proteins in genetically modified crops, reducing the use of pesticides. But the same problem - mRNA instability - also proved central in the development of vaccines against Covid-19. By solving it, the immune response was improved, making Monsanto's technology a crucial building block, at least according to the German company's thesis. The case of Johnson & Johnson, whose vaccine was based on a viral vector and not on pure mRNA, would not be an exception: even in that process, Bayer argues, the stability of gene expression was a key element.

Bayer's offensive is part of a real war of all against all in the world of mRNA vaccines. In recent years, Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna, Gsk and CureVac have been dragging each other through the courts, claiming different portions of the technology platform. In 2022, Moderna sued Pfizer and BioNTech in the US and Germany, accusing them of copying key elements of its mRna technology, from chemical modification of molecules to lipid nanoparticles. Pfizer and BioNTech responded by challenging the validity of Moderna's patents and requesting their invalidation, arguing that the rival was attempting to appropriate an entire technology sector. At the same time, CureVac - another German biotech pioneering mRNA - started a long legal battle against BioNTech, which resulted in a settlement involving Gsk in 2025. The settlement provided for upfront payments, royalties and cross-licensing, with no admission of liability, but showed how the value of patents had become a central economic lever in the post-pandemic phase. Gsk, for its part, has sued both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, claiming that the mRna technology underpinning the Covid and Rsv vaccines stems from research acquired through the purchase of Novartis' vaccine business in 2015. A web of lawsuits that continues to widen as the Covid vaccine market shrinks dramatically after moving from pandemic to endemic.

The legal move comes at an extremely delicate time for Bayer. The group is going through a deep restructuring phase, marked by heavy losses in 2023 and 2024 and a still unwieldy legal legacy related to the Monsanto acquisition and the glyphosate lawsuits. More than 67,000 proceedings are still pending in the US, despite the fact that the group has already awarded and paid out more than USD 10 billion in damages and settlements. The Crop Science division remains the main sticking point as the new management attempts to relaunch the group with cost cuts, reorganisations and a more aggressive strategy on intellectual property exploitation. On the pharmaceutical front, the company is betting on the new generation of medicines - from the renal treatment Kerendia to the oncology drug Nubeqa - and is counting on the recent FDA green light for its new menopause product, Lynkuet, to boost future growth. The market is watching closely: some quarterly results for 2025 have exceeded expectations, but Bayer's future remains tied to its ability to settle major legal disputes and turn innovation - even that born decades ago in Monsanto laboratories - into a source of economic stability.