The company is filing patent infringement lawsuits against Pfizer

Moderna said in a statement on Friday that it is suing Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech for patent infringement while developing the first COVID-19 vaccine approved in the United States.

The American pharmaceutical and biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, alleges its rivals copied technology that Moderna developed years before the pandemic.

The lawsuit, which doesn't set out any specific financial compensation, was being filed in a US District Court in Massachusetts and the Regional Court of Düsseldorf in Germany, Moderna said.

"Moderna believes that Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty infringes patents Moderna filed between 2010 and 2016 covering Moderna's foundational mRNA technology," the biopharmaceutical company said in a statement.

"We are filing these lawsuits to protect the innovative mRNA technology platform that we pioneered, invested billions of dollars in creating, and patented during the decade preceding the COVID-19 pandemic," Moderna Chief Executive Stephane Bancel said in the statement.