March 3 (Reuters) – Roivant Sciences subsidiaries Genevant Sciences and Arbutus Biopharma said on Tuesday Moderna has agreed to pay it up to $2.25 billion to resolve a long-running legal dispute over its COVID-19 vaccine technology.
Under the agreement, Moderna will pay $950 million upfront in July 2026 and an additional $1.3 billion, subject to the outcome of separate legal appeals.
In after-hours trading, shares of Moderna were up more than 10%, Arbutus was up 11%, and Roivant was up about 1%.
The agreement resolves all U.S. and international legal proceedings alleging Moderna’s unlicensed use of lipid nanoparticles (LNP), a delivery technology owned by Genevant and Arbutus, in its COVID-19 vaccine Spikevax.
LNP technology acts as a tiny protective shell to help fragile mRNA molecules reach human cells intact, which is a key component for mRNA vaccines to work.
(Reporting by Kamal Chaudhry in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona)
