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Moderna will not enforce coronavirus vaccine patent during pandemic

New Delhi, 9-Oct-2020

Moderna Inc has said it would not enforce patents related to its experimental Cocid-19 vaccine during the pandemic and would not pursue any litigation against companies that make use of its technology after the coronavirus outbreak ends. The decision was taken to allow other drugmakers to develop shots using the Moderna's technology, Moderna executives said. The company also said it was willing to license the technology behind the vaccine after the pandemic. Moderna will not be asserting its intellectual property rights for its vaccine technology. Moderna has received over $1 billion in government funding to develop and produce its candidate, and another $1.5 billion to supply it to the American public. �We�re quite studiously not asserting infringement," Moderna President Stephen Hoge said in an interview, the Wall Street Journal reported. �We�re doing the opposite of creating that kind of anxiety for folks. We�re not interested in using that IP to decrease the number of vaccines available in a pandemic." Moderna was the first company to announce and carry out human trials for an RNA-based drug earlier in March, saying it would be able to produce �a limited vaccine by fall of 2020�. Moderna�s vaccine is one of the 11 experimental vaccines in final trial stages.