Tiny Arbutus Biopharma Wins Patent Litigation Fight with COVID-19 Vaccine Implications

Arbutus Biopharma (NASDAQ: ABUS) has for some years owned the rights to a technology that can be used to deliver messenger RNA to a patient's cells. Back in January 2019, Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), whose entire drug platform is based upon messenger RNA, filed a petition with the U.S. Patent Office to have the small biotech firm's drug-delivery patent declared invalid. Instead, on Thursday, the agency's Patent Trial and Appeal Board ruled in favor of Arbutus.

The ruling is important as Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine candidate uses technology that's covered by this patent. The experimental vaccines that the company is developing use mRNA to issue instructions to the body's cells to start manufacturing proteins that will trigger an immune system response. But a major issue with this method is the matter of treatment delivery -- how to get these instructions into the body's cells. Several years ago, Moderna licensed its delivery technology -- the use of lipid nanoparticles -- from a small Canadian company called Acuitas. That company, it turns out, had licensed its technology from Arbutus Biopharma -- and it did not have rights to sublicense it.

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