Toxic Exposures
Bayer Lawsuit Claims Pfizer, Moderna Used Monsanto’s GMO Technology to Build COVID Vaccines
Bayer on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit, accusing Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson of unlawfully using mRNA optimization technology — originally developed by Monsanto to genetically engineer crops — as the platform for their COVID-19 vaccines, Reuters reported. Bayer acquired Monsanto in 2018.
Bayer is suing COVID-19 vaccine makers Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson (J&J) in federal court.
The chemical giant on Tuesday accused the drugmakers of unlawfully using mRNA optimization technology — originally developed by Monsanto — as the platform for their COVID-19 vaccines, Reuters reported.
Bayer acquired Monsanto in 2018 for $63 billion.
The lawsuits claim the three companies used Monsanto’s decades-old patented technology for removing “problem sequences” from genetic code to improve mRNA stability and protein expression — obstacles the vaccine makers had previously identified as key challenges in vaccine development.
Even though J&J used a viral vector, not mRNA technology, for its vaccine, the lawsuit alleges J&J also relied on the same patented genetic engineering techniques to stabilize and amplify protein expression in its vaccines.
“Welcome to clown world,” the McCullough Foundation epidemiologist Nicolas Hulscher wrote on Substack, commenting on the lawsuit.
“One of the world’s largest agrochemical companies — responsible for mass harm through its highly toxic herbicide glyphosate — is now in federal court claiming that the deadly COVID-19 ‘vaccine’ platforms were built on stolen GMO [genetically modified organism] technology.”
In the court filings, Bayer said it doesn’t want to interfere with the production of the COVID-19 vaccines, or any other mRNA vaccines. Instead, it seeks a cut of the profits from the most lucrative pharmaceutical products in history.
The complaint states:
“Defendants have profited handsomely from infringing vaccine sales worldwide. The patent system provides an important, predictable framework for advancing scientific knowledge by allowing companies a limited period to recover at least a reasonable royalty for the unauthorized use of their patented inventions.
“Plaintiffs seek this basic compensation afforded to a patent holder under the patent statute.”
Pfizer and BioNTech earned more than $3.3 billion from global sales of their Comirnaty COVID-19
vaccine in 2024 alone, and Moderna earned $3.2 billion from Spikevax, Reuters reported. The companies’ 2025 earnings from the vaccines are only a fraction of what drugmakers made at the height of the pandemic.Bayer said that Pfizer and BioNTech reported more than $93 billion in sales from their shot.
J&J stopped selling its COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S. in 2023.
Bayer seeks share of past and future COVID vaccine profits
The lawsuits claim the pandemic caused more than 7 million deaths worldwide and 1.2 million in the U.S. and credit Operation Warp Speed with saving millions of lives.
However, they allege, behind that “success” was the unauthorized use of technology that Monsanto developed in the 1980s and for which it filed a patent in 1989. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office didn’t issue the patent until 2010.
All three cases center on the “’118 Patent” technique that allowed them to modify a structural gene sequence by reducing destabilizing sequences and substituting different codons.
Codons are nucleotide sequences that carry genetic instructions. They are used to increase protein output and improve stability, a process known as “codon optimization.”
Bayer and Monsanto trace the invention back to Monsanto scientists Dr. David Fischhoff and Dr. Fred Perlak, who developed the technology to genetically engineer crops to be resistant to pests and viruses.
According to the complaint, Monsanto’s scientists discovered that certain recurring sequences in genes could trigger instability and poor expression. Making genes that could encode a protein without those sequences dramatically increased protein production across plant and animal cells alike.
The process they developed for that purpose “represented an important discovery that benefits applications in other industries beyond agriculture,” the complaints alleged, “including pharmaceuticals.”
All three complaints allege that each defendant used Monsanto’s patented method to remove approximately 100 “problem sequences” from the genetic instructions for the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to increase stability and expression. The process was used to enhance the efficacy of the vaccines.
Bayer requested a jury trial and is seeking part of the proceeds already generated by the vaccines, along with royalties on future sales.
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Bayer took financial hit for Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller
Since it acquired Monsanto, Bayer has suffered massive financial losses in a “tidal wave” of lawsuits seeking to hold and then Bayer responsible for cancer caused by glyphosate, a key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller.
The lawsuits forced Monsanto to remove glyphosate from Roundup sold to consumers, but not from the commercial formulation used by farmers.
Bayer paid about $11 billion to settle nearly 100,000 lawsuits. About 61,000 lawsuits are still pending.
The company is pursuing legislation in several states to change laws in order to protect it from future similar litigation.
Bayer also asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on a case the chemical giant lost in a lower court. The case asks the court to find that if the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t require a safety warning on a pesticide label, then states cannot require similar warnings, and consumers then can’t sue pesticide manufacturers for failing to warn them of potential health hazards.
The court will conference on Friday to decide whether to hear the case.
Monsanto manufactures Roundup Ready genetically modified seeds engineered to grow corn and soy that can survive spraying with glyphosate, which the company first introduced in 1996.
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