Moderna sues Pfizer and BioNTech over COVID-19 vaccine

Moderna is taking Pfizer and Germany's BioNTech to court, claiming the rival drugmakers copied its technology in developing their COVID-19 vaccine. 

In documents filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts and in Germany, Moderna claims Pfizer and BioNTech violated its intellectual property rights on key parts of its messenger RNA technology, which it had patents on from 2010 to 2016. 

"We believe that Pfizer and BioNTech unlawfully copied Moderna's inventions, and they have continued to use them without permission," Shannon Thyme Klinger, chief legal officer for Moderna, a biotechnology startup based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said Friday in a statement.