British biopharmaceutical giant GSK has sued Pfizer in a US court, alleging that the latter’s respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine Abrysvo violates GSK’s patent rights in its rival RSV shot Arexvy, and infringes four of its patents related to the antigen its jab uses.
Both vaccines were approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in May for adults over 60 – the first that have been approved to prevent RSV, which causes around 14 000 deaths in adults over 65 in the US every year, reports Reuters.
Pfizer and GSK are neck and neck trying to tap into the RSV vaccine market, which could exceed $10bn by 2030, analysts say. The vaccines are part of both companies’ strategies to replace ageing drugs that will face cheaper generic competition.
GSK said in the lawsuit that Pfizer began working on its RSV programme as early as 2013, at least seven years after GSK, and that Pfizer had known of GSK’s patented technology since at least 2019, when it began challenging the validity of European versions of the patents.
Reuters article – GSK sues Pfizer in US for patent infringement over RSV vaccine (Open access)
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