 Hello everyone and welcome to the People's Sales Dispatch. Today we are here with Zane Rieswig from Public Citizen to discuss a new development in the story about COVID-19 vaccines and which is connected to Moderna's proceedings against Pfizer because of the use of mRNA technology. So welcome Zane, maybe we can start with discussing how this new court case by Moderna against Pfizer has once again brought the issue of patents for mRNA technology at the center of the debate which deals with COVID-19 medical products and of course other medical products so can you tell me a bit more why this is so and what is actually Moderna playing in the court so what are they trying to do here? Sure so the story of mRNA technology goes back decades right there's science is always incremental it builds on each other knowledge builds on each other and so you know there are many contributions that many people around the world have made to mRNA you know perhaps one of the biggest breakthroughs came in the late 2000s when some academic researchers at the University of Pennsylvania discovered that if you just put mRNA into the body itself it creates too many side effects you know it's almost the body recognizes it as a foreign substance and so it reacts to it it's reactogenic and those scientists identified that if you substituted one piece of the RNA with another piece of the RNA one of the bases then the body if you modify the RNA as it's called then the body does not you know have that same kind of negative response and so that was a critical breakthrough right that opened up the kind of field of modified RNA and so the story of Moderna as a company actually is building off that discovery right building off that invention rather they kind of you know the company's name Moderna comes from modified RNA mod RNA Moderna and so this is a company that should be understood as benefiting from this kind of you know foundational academic public science and also of course it has received to kind of federal funding you know at many stages of its development so you look at mRNA technology and the kind of you know the decade-long history of it Moderna got involved around 2010 that's when the company was founded you know it was spun off from a lab and you know they have made their own intricate incremental contributions of course right and so what Moderna is saying in this new lawsuit to Pfizer is that you know your vaccine the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine actually infringes some of the patents we have on both on some of the key both coronavirus technology and also the mRNA technology and so you as you can imagine you know there are many many dozens of patents on mRNA technology and Moderna is saying that Pfizer-BioNTech is infringing on two parts of it okay and so you know still staying with the case so what do you think what are the possible outcomes or the different scenarios that we could be looking at here and of course you know what would that mean for access to COVID-19 vaccines for people around the world I think the most likely scenario here and we should be clear so Moderna is seeking damages it is seeking royalties but it's not seeking what's called an injunction right it's not trying to stop Pfizer-BioNTech from selling its vaccine what it's doing is telling Pfizer-BioNTech you should be paying us a percentage you know of your sales or some other calculation because you are using our technology without our permission and so the most likely outcome I think is you know the courts will kind of assess you know both the validity of patents you know there'll be kind of this this process you know Pfizer-BioNTech will file its complaint maybe it'll challenge the patents but I think the one of the most likely outcomes is the fact that if there is kind of a finding of infringement and if there is one then Pfizer will have to pay Moderna a slice of you know the billions of dollars it has made you know and then the key question will be you know how many you know millions of dollars will Pfizer have to pay and we'll have to see how that ends up being calculated so I think from an access perspective we can say that you know there are it is primarily going to be a monetary situation one of the potential concerning impacts here might be the fact that you know Pfizer when it entered into contracts with a lot of developing countries it actually told developing countries that if we get sued by anyone you know we're not liable for the costs you are and so you know it remains to be seen if and you know if that applies and whether Pfizer will actually act in that way but that could be you know a significant development as well. Okay and just to come back to something that you mentioned before of course so the technology that's being disputed here has been developed and built upon you know in different phases and by different people and part of that has been also made possible thanks to US National Institutes of Health who work with public funding so maybe can we speak a bit about of the validity of the dispute and if you know how can Moderna actually take something that's being developed with public funding go to court and claim ownership over that and whether the US government's taking any stand when that's concerned. Right so there's there's many different components of mRNA technology and Moderna at least that's press release you know deliberately states that this is not you know the patents that were at dispute between the National Institutes of Health and Moderna over the COVID-19 vaccine. However as we know there are still so many more kind of federal contributions to mRNA science and so let me actually give you even a stronger example here so the story I told about those academics at the University of Pennsylvania who figured out you know if you modify RNA you can you know introduce it into the body and it's tolerated well what Moderna is claiming that Pfizer infringed is actually a different kind of modification and not even necessarily a different kind but it's a particular kind of modification that they are saying that Pfizer is infringing and that they have a patent on but the idea and the invention of modifying was done at the University of Pennsylvania right and so you can see how incremental the step that Moderna says it has taken really is and so it makes you wonder you know if you go to the ocean and you have you know a bottle of water and you you know put some ocean water into your bottle can you suddenly start saying this is my water right this is my this is mine and you know you can't have it and so it really goes to show I think the metaphor around you know knowledge as a resource and particularly when it is publicly funded and publicly supported and so finally one final question so maybe looking at it from a bit of a different perspective do know what would you say would be the ideal scenario to see in this case and maybe also reflecting a bit on how mRNA technology could actually be made more accessible to to more people instead of pursuing this destroyed that Moderna and Pfizer and the other big pharma companies have chosen so right now we are seeing a strategy of control right Moderna is trying to exercise monopoly control Moderna is saying to Pfizer if you want to continue selling this vaccine if you want to continue using mRNA technology you have to go through us and it raises the question why right why should we allow Moderna to monopolize this technology and control how it is developed not only now but also in the future for many different kinds of applications because this is not just about COVID-19 right this is about mRNA technology and all the future potential applications that might have you know one of the kind of classic arguments the industry says is oh no we do need to protect IP we do need these patents because of a return on investment right but Moderna has already made you know tens of billions of dollars I've already lost count right I think it's might be more than 30 billion if I'm remembering accurately and so clearly there's been enough reward right I think you know an ideal version of how this might proceed if you know if we were to understand mRNA technology would be that mRNA technology itself the key patents would be shared right they would be shared widely and you know there can be like royalty right royalties and are not necessarily the problem here right the problem is the way the company seeks to control the technology and so you could imagine if the patents were widely shared they're widely licensed you know for some reasonable royalty then manufacturers around the world could use the technology and develop it in their own ways right and and make it you know more locally applicable you know they could they could pursue disease targets you know that are regional they could you know provide additional innovation and kind of think of new ways of improving the technology but instead what we have right now is this big company basically asserting itself and saying that this is ours right this is ours and what we need to do as a global community is push back and say actually you know mRNA belongs to all of us and I think that's actually you know one of the key principles I think that the world health organization is supporting through the mRNA technology transfer hub which is why it's so important it's an effort by developing country manufacturers around the world to work with mRNA technology and to to to help provide vaccines and and treatments in the future so we are not reliant on just a handful of companies controlling who gets access on and on what conditions there's one way to look at this case which is you know a purely commercial dispute between these two giants you know and who cares if Moderna you know gets Pfizer to pay Moderna money right there's that that's one way of looking at it I'm you know and many people are looking at us in that way but there's another way of looking at it which is about who asserts control to technology and who sets the terms and conditions under which life-saving vaccine technology is available right and so while we can't say for sure you know what the consequences of the case might be and what it might look like I think it's reasonable to say that you know we can imagine that some more mRNA manufacturers around the world will be a little bit more careful now might be you know might be there might be some chilling effects at least partially on on some innovation for mRNA technology and they'll be watching closely and some might actually you know decide to leave the field entirely potentially depending on how the technology is controlled and exercised and so we'll just have to wait and see thank you very much Zane and thanks to everyone who tuned in to listen to People's Health Dispatch this episode and see you next time