Full Press Release Details
CureVac Announces Decision of German Federal
Patent Court in Broad Patent Litigation
T BINGEN, Germany/BOSTON, USA -
December 19, 2023 - CureVac N.V. (Nasdaq: CVAC) ("CureVac"), a global biopharmaceutical company developing a new
class of transformative medicines based on messenger ribonucleic acid ("mRNA"), today announced that the nullity action filed
by BioNTech SE against the German part of CureVac patent EP 1 857 122 B1 was granted by the German Federal Patent Court. CureVac will
appeal before the German Federal Court of Justice.
The ruling represents a first decision on validity
in ongoing patent litigation between CureVac and BioNTech SE in Germany, which involves a total of eight CureVac intellectual property
rights. Proceedings continue regarding the seven remaining rights, for which validity, infringement and potential damages will be decided
individually. Following today's decision, a ruling on infringement of the German part of EP 1 857 122 B1, scheduled for December
28, 2023, before the Regional Court D sseldorf, will likely be postponed.
"We consider the patent court's decision
unfortunate also in view of the positive preliminary opinion on EP 1 857 122 B1 the court provided earlier this year. The decision is
only one of many that will be made regarding the use of CureVac's intellectual property in the development of Comirnaty . We
remain highly confident that our pioneering role in mRNA technology and continuing innovation in the field made essential contributions
to safe and efficacious COVID-19 vaccines," said Dr. Alexander Zehnder, Chief Executive Officer of CureVac. "While we do not
seek to diminish the value of mRNA vaccines in changing the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, we strongly believe that CureVac's
role in laying the scientific groundwork for those vaccines needs to be recognized. We will continue to defend our claim for recognition
and fair compensation and will take appropriate action by appealing this decision."
CureVac is represented in Germany by Oliver Jan
J ngst from Bird & Bird LLP and Andreas Graf von Stosch from Graf von Stosch Patentanwaltsgesellschaft and represented in the
U.S. by Mark H. Izraelewicz from Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP.
CureVac (Nasdaq: CVAC) is a global biopharmaceutical
company in the field of messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, with more than 20 years of expertise in developing, optimizing, and manufacturing
this versatile biological molecule for medical purposes. The principle of CureVac's proprietary technology is the use of optimized
mRNA as a data carrier to instruct the human body to produce its own proteins capable of fighting a broad range of diseases. In July 2020,
CureVac entered in a collaboration with GSK to jointly develop new products in prophylactic vaccines for infectious diseases based on
CureVac's second-generation mRNA technology. This collaboration was later extended to the development of second-generation COVID-19
vaccine candidates, and modified mRNA vaccine technologies. Based on its proprietary technology, CureVac has built a deep clinical pipeline
across the areas of prophylactic vaccines, cancer therapies, antibody therapies, and the treatment of rare diseases. CureVac N.V. has
its headquarters in T bingen, Germany, and has more than 1,100 employees across its sites in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland
and the U.S. Further information can be found at www.curevac.com.
Media and Investor Relations Contact
Fakih, Vice President Corporate Communications and Investor Relations
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including statements that express the opinions, expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, assumptions or projections of CureVac N.V. and/or
its wholly owned subsidiaries CureVac SE, CureVac Manufacturing GmbH, CureVac Inc., CureVac Swiss AG, CureVac Corporate Services GmbH,
CureVac RNA Printer GmbH, CureVac Belgium SA and CureVac Netherlands B.V. (the "company") regarding future events or future
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