Alnylam Pharmaceuticals has agreed to drop its 2023 patent lawsuit against Moderna in a Delaware court following a judge’s ruling in September.
In an Oct. 2 filing, Alnylam said the ruling “precludes it from obtaining a judgment in its favor with respect to infringement” on one of its patents for its lipid nanoparticle technology.
According to the filing, the companies agreed to a final judgment that Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine Spikevax as it’s “currently formulated [does] not infringe” on Alnylam’s patent, based on the court’s “construction of the foregoing claim term.”
The ruling last month dealt with what’s known as claim construction, a key aspect of patent litigation that interprets the meaning of a patent’s claims in order to decide if one has been infringed.
A representative for Alnylam said the company “respectfully disagrees with the Court’s decision and has reserved its rights including the right to appeal in this case.”
Alnylam filed the lawsuit in May 2023, alleging that Moderna benefited from the lipid particle technology it invented more than a decade ago. It also filed a lawsuit against Pfizer at the same time. It was the third round of lawsuits Alnylam has brought against Pfizer and Moderna over the companies’ Covid vaccines.
Lawsuits from 2022 and 2023 against Pfizer are still ongoing, as is a separate suit against Moderna that is currently in the US Court Of Appeals.
The judge also dismissed Moderna’s counterclaims against Alnylam, which accused the company of looking to profit off Moderna’s vaccine.