Vaccine development: Biontech and Pfizer pay for settlement in USA

The vaccine manufacturer Biontech has reached multi-million dollar settlements in the USA in a dispute over license fees. The company from Mainz and its partner Pfizer will pay a total of the equivalent of 1.2 billion euros to the US health authority NIH and the University of Pennsylvania, as Biontech announced upon request.

791.5 million US dollars (around 759 million euros) will go to the US authorities, of which Pfizer will reportedly cover 364.5 US dollars (around 350 million euros). The university will receive up to 467.0 million US dollars (around 448 million euros), of which Pfizer will cover up to 170 million US dollars (around 163 million euros). The Mainz company had brought a corona vaccine onto the market with the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.

According to earlier information from Biontech, the dispute with the university was about “non-exclusive rights” to patent applications used in the Covid-19 vaccine from Biontech and Pfizer. The dispute with the NIH – the acronym stands for National Institutes of Health – revolved around royalties and other related amounts.

According to Biontech, the settlement with the NIH came about on December 20th, and that with the university on December 23rd. Both agreements do not represent an admission of liability in relation to the allegations made, emphasized Biontech. A spokeswoman said these cases were different from litigation with competitors such as Moderna or Curevac. The university and the NIH authority are cooperation partners.