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Warner Bros. Discovery reported second-quarter results Thursday that fell below Wall Street expectations across the board.
Global direct-to-consumer streaming subscribers at the end of the period were 95.8 million, below Wall Street expectations and a decrease of nearly 2 million from the end of the first quarter.
Still, the company announced a tender offer aimed to pay down up to $2.7 billion in debt.

Kevin Mazur | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Warner Bros. Discovery reported second-quarter results Thursday that fell below Wall Street expectations across the board and revealed subscriber totals that were down from the previous quarter.
Global direct-to-consumer streaming subscribers at the end of the period were 95.8 million, below the 96.7 million subscribers analysts were expecting according to StreetAccount, and a decrease of nearly 2 million from the end of the first quarter.

The company launched its combined Max streaming service during the second quarter, merging HBO content with unscripted hits from the Discovery networks into one platform.
Customers dropping their Discovery+ subscriptions for Max was likely to blame for the drop in subscribers. Data provider Antenna estimated that Discovery+ cancellations were up about 68% compared to June 2022 due to the switchover to Max.
Still, the company said it had repaid $1.6 billion in debt during the quarter and announced a tender offer aimed to pay down up to $2.7 billion more.
It follows a tender offer from June, which also drove the stock. Paying down its heavy debt load stemming from the 2022 merger of Warner Bros. and Discovery has been a focus as the company looks to return to investment grade status by the end of the year.
The company ended the second quarter with $47.8 billion in debt and $3.1 billion in cash on hand.

Here’s what the company reported for the quarter ended June 30, versus analysts’ estimates, according to Refinitiv:

Loss per share: 51 cents vs. 38 cents expected
Revenue: $10.36 billion vs. $10.44 billion expected

Warner Bros. Discovery reported a net loss of $1.24 billion, or 51 cents per share, a sharp improvement from a net loss of $3.42 billion, or $1.50 per share, a year earlier.
Revenue of $10.36 billion was 5% higher year over year on an actual basis, but 4% lower when taking into account the impact of foreign currency and the merger, which closed in early last year.
Similar to its peers, Warner Bros. Discovery has been working to make its streaming business profitable. 
The company’s direct-to-consumer streaming segment turned a profit for the first time during the first quarter of this year, but posted a loss of $3 million for the second quarter. Company executives had warned of that reversal, citing costs associated with the Max launch.
Executives had been planning to combine the two streamers for more than a year as part of the rationale for the merger between Warner Bros. and Discovery. The pricing for subscribers has so far remained the same – $9.99 a month with commercials and $15.99 a month without ads. 
Warner Bros. Discovery’s studios dragged down earnings, with total revenue for the segment down 8% to $2.58 billion compared to last year, when the company had a stronger film slate that included “The Batman.”
This past quarter “The Flash” was released in theaters, a flop that barely topped $100 million at domestic box office.
Meanwhile the networks segment was essentially flat at $5.76 billion, as advertising revenue dropped for the segment due to the falling number of traditional cable TV subscribers and the soft ad market.
The weak ad market, due to the uncertain macroeconomic environment, has been weighing on Warner Bros. Discovery and its media peers in recent quarters. The rate of cord cutting has also accelerated.
Company executives have previously said they are sticking with the goal of lowering its debt-to-EBITDA leverage to below four times. Any meaningful cash generation will likely go toward repaying its debt, CNBC previously reported. 
Cost cutting initiatives including layoffs and content-spending reductions, as well as licensing out more content, has driven adjusted EBITDA — which was up almost 30% to $2.15 billion during the quarter — and cash generation. More

Shares of Moderna rose Thursday after the biotech company hiked its full-year outlook for its Covid vaccine, its only marketable product, despite reporting a quarterly loss and sharp drop in revenue. 
The Massachusetts-based company expects $6 billion to $8 billion in sales for its Covid shot this year, driven by potential U.S. demand for 50 million to 100 million doses in the fall.
Moderna and its rivals Pfizer and Novavax have all seen a steep drop in Covid-related sales as the world moves on from the pandemic.  

Artur Widak | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Shares of Moderna rose Thursday after the biotech company hiked its full-year outlook for its Covid vaccine, its only marketable product, despite reporting a quarterly loss and sharp drop in revenue. 
Here are Moderna’s results:

Loss per share: $3.62 (That may not be comparable to the $4.04 expected by analysts surveyed by Refinitiv)
Revenue: $344 million (That may not be comparable to the $319.6 million expected by analysts surveyed by Refinitiv)

The biotech company generated second-quarter sales of $344 million, largely due to a 94% drop in sales of its Covid shot. Total revenue plunged from the $4.75 billion it recorded in the same period a year ago, when Covid cases still trended higher in the U.S. 
Moderna posted a net loss of $1.38 billion, or $3.62 per share, for the quarter. That compares with $2.20 billion in net income, or $5.24 per share, reported during the same quarter last year.
But Moderna hopes to end the sales slump on strong demand for its updated Covid vaccine targeting the omicron subvariant XBB.1.5. The company is slated to roll the shot out this fall in the U.S. commercial market, but is still waiting for the Food and Drug Administration to approve the jab.
Moderna expects $6 billion to $8 billion in sales for its Covid shot this year, up from its previous forecast of $5 billion. 
The “biggest factor” that will determine whether sales are within that range is vaccination rates in the U.S. from September to December, Moderna’s chief commercial officer, Arpa Garay, said during an earnings call.

She noted that the company expects U.S. demand of 50 million to 100 million doses this fall, but acknowledged that it’s “difficult to accurately predict market volumes and predict how many Americans will come in this fall for their shots.”
The new sales forecast includes around $4 billion in previously announced Covid vaccine purchase agreements and $2 billion to $4 billion in “signed and anticipated” contracts in the U.S. and other markets like Japan and the European Union. 
The company is in talks with other purchasers in the U.S., EU and other parts of the world for more potential orders. However, Moderna said $1 billion in previously anticipated 2023 sales from signed government contracts was pushed to 2024.
Moderna shares rose 1% in premarket trading. The Massachusetts-based company’s shares have dropped more than 38% this year, putting its market value at around $42 billion. 
Costs of sales for the quarter came in at $731 million. That included a $464 million write-off for vaccines that have exceeded their shelf life and a $135 million charge from unused manufacturing capacity, among other expenses.
The charges were primarily driven by a shift in product demand to the monovalent XBB.1.5 shot, which rendered the remaining inventory of Moderna’s previous bivalent vaccine obsolete. Bivalent means the shot targeted two strains of the virus, while a monovalent jab only targets one. 
Moderna, Pfizer and Novavax have all seen sales of their Covid-related products plummet as much of the world moves on from the pandemic and depends less on protective vaccines and treatments. 
But people are still dying from Covid every day and the virus isn’t fully going away anytime soon, so the drugmakers are investing in new products to fight it. 
This fall will be an important milestone for Moderna and its rivals.
The U.S. government will shift Covid products to the commercial market, which means drugmakers will start selling vaccines and treatments directly to health care providers rather than to the government.
Pfizer on Tuesday warned that Covid shot sales in the commercial market are uncertain, adding that vaccination rates will help the company better predict sales for 2023 and beyond.

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Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax haven’t disclosed when they expect their new shots to be available to the public.
But new CDC Director Mandy Cohen told NPR on Monday that the new vaccines could be available by the “early October time frame.”
Moderna will hold an earnings call with investors at 8 a.m. ET, which will likely provide more updates on its upcoming Covid vaccine rollout and drug pipeline.
The company has said it hopes to offer a new set of lifesaving vaccines targeting cancer, heart disease and other conditions by 2030.
That lineup includes Moderna’s experimental vaccine that targets respiratory syncytial virus. The company expects to file for full approval of the shot for adults ages 60 and older this quarter. 
The pipeline also includes Moderna’s personalized cancer vaccine, a highly anticipated mRNA shot being developed with Merck to target different tumor types, along with a flu vaccine.  More

Travelers are increasingly opting for destinations abroad at the expense of dometic trips.
That’s driving up international airfares and room rates, while domestic growth lags.
The shift is good news for passengers who want to stay closer to home — but bad news for airlines that have U.S.-heavy schedules.

Women pose for a photo while holding an ice cream at Trevi fountain during hot weather as a heat wave hits Europe in Rome, Italy, July 19, 2022. 
Guglielmo Mangiapane | Reuters

The competition for travel dollars is heating up, and the U.S. is losing out.
Airlines and hotel chains in recent weeks have reported a surge in bookings for international trips — along with rising prices.

That’s a boon to companies with global offerings, but a new challenge for airlines, theme parks and hotels that are more focused within the U.S. as travelers increasingly opt for locations abroad at the expense of domestic destinations.
International airfare is averaging $962, up 10% from last year and 26% from 2019, according to fare-tracking company Hopper. Domestic airfare, meanwhile, is falling. Roundtrips within the U.S. are down 11% from last year and 12% from 2019 at an average price of $249.
The shift is being felt at hotels too: Room rates for Europe hotels averaged $148.88 in the first half of the year, up nearly 14% from last year, while U.S. hotel rates rose just 6% from the same period a year earlier to $154.45, according to data from CoStar, the parent company of hotel-industry analysis firm STR.
Nightly rates at luxury hotels in Paris, for example, rose more than 22% in the first half of the year from a year earlier, while luxury hotel rates in Orlando, Florida, rose just 0.2%, CoStar data show.
Marriott International on Tuesday said second-quarter revenue per available room rose 6% year over year in the U.S. and Canada. The growth in international markets was more than 39%.

Nightly rates for Marriott luxury properties, like JW Marriott, The Ritz-Carlton and Edition in the U.S. and Canada ticked 1% down year over year.

Arrows pointing outwards

Marriott finance chief Kathleen Oberg said the trend started more than a year ago, and noted that customers now have more options for places to go.
“That’s clear that when you look at the travel patterns this year that there is a big exodus of Americans going over to Europe and other places in the world,” she said on the company’s second-quarter earnings call on Tuesday.
Jesse Inman is one of those travelers opting for trips abroad. The 29-year-old, who left a software sales job earlier this year to build a farm with his father in North Carolina, is in the middle of a weekslong trip to Israel, the U.K., Austria and France.

Inman said he spent $1,839 on his two flights between the U.S. and Europe. He said he would have expected that kind of trip to cost a third of that total based on what he used to pay before the pandemic.
“The fact that I’m spending a month in Europe is going to stop me from taking some domestic trips in the near future,” Inman said. Some trips he had been considering — but could forgo — include visiting friends in Atlanta, the Denver area, and Austin and San Antonio in Texas. He also said he might cut back on skiing this winter.
Investors are starting to hear from amusement park operators on the outlook for their businesses. Cedar Fair on Thursday reported a decline in attendance for the second quarter but an increase in profit. Six Flags Entertainment reports next week.
Last week, Comcast said theme park revenue rose 22% from a year ago to more than $2.2 billion in the most recent quarter, though it registered a slowdown at its Universal parks in Orlando. The company blamed that on tougher comparisons.
“In Orlando, it really compares very well to pre-pandemic. We’re obviously down on attendance, which was kind of unprecedented […] coming off of Covid,” Comcast President Michael Cavanagh said on an earnings call last week. “So not surprised by that softening. That said, we’re at levels of attendance and per caps being better so that overall, we feel good about what we’re seeing in Orlando.”

Home turf disadvantage

The rise in international travel is good news for passengers who are looking for deals closer to home — but bad news for airlines that have U.S.-heavy schedules.
JetBlue Airways on Tuesday cut its guidance for the current quarter and 2023, citing a surge in international long-haul travel that’s hurting the carrier, whose network is largely focused on the U.S. market, the Caribbean and parts of Latin America (though it has offers service to London, Paris and Amsterdam).
“We’ve seen a greater-than-expected geographic shift in pent-up Covid demand as the strength in demand for long international travel this summer has pressured demand for shorter-haul travel,” JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes said on the company’s earnings call earlier this week.
Budget airline Frontier said the return of international long-haul travel would take a 3-point bite out of its margins, though CEO Barry Biffle said the trend could soon moderate. The carrier’s second-quarter revenue from fares per passenger fell 26% to $47.59 year over year.
Southwest Airlines also disappointed investors with its outlook last week. And Alaska Airlines, which is also focused on the U.S. market, noted a shift toward international destinations from domestic this year.
“We believe pent-up international demand has had the effect of a larger pool from would be domestic travelers than has historically been the case,” Alaska’s chief commercial officer Andrew Harrison, said on an earnings call last week.
Meanwhile, airlines like Delta Air Lines and United Airlines have been ramping up their international service to capitalize on strong demand for trips abroad that executives expect to continue into the fall, with international revenue growth far outpacing domestic revenue growth.
“Our international system is just performing outstandingly,” Andrew Nocella, United’s chief commercial officer, said on an earnings call last month. “There’s not like a single part of the globe, a single part of the network that’s not working.”
Airline stocks have declined from recent highs this earnings season as executives detail a shift in consumer preferences.
The NYSE Arca Airline index is down roughly 10% so far this quarter, while the S&P 500 is up about 1.5%.
— CNBC’s Gabriel Cortes contributed to this report.
Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC. More

EVgo’s second-quarter revenue beat expectations, and the company lost less money than expected.
More drivers are using EVgo’s chargers and they’re using more electricity per charge, the company said.
Revenue from EVgo’s private-label business, providing chargers to other companies, has surged in 2023.

A view of an EVgo EV charging station on July 28, 2023 in Corte Madera, California. 
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

EV charging network operator EVgo on Wednesday reported second-quarter revenue that beat Wall Street’s expectations and posted a narrower-than-expected loss, as more electric vehicle drivers used its network and revenue from its private-label eXtend unit boomed.
EVgo also increased its guidance for the full year. Shares were up about 8% in after-hours trading following the report.

Here are the key numbers from EVgo’s second-quarter report, compared with Wall Street analysts’ consensus estimates as reported by Refinitiv:

Loss per share: 8 cents vs. 27 cents expected.
Revenue: $50.6 million vs. $29.6 million expected.

The company reported a net loss of $21.5 million, or 8 cents per share. A year ago, EVgo reported a profit of $17 million, or 6 cents per share, on revenue of $9.1 million.
“We are pleased to report EVgo’s network throughput growth is accelerating, demonstrating the leverage in our business and financial model as the auto sector rapidly electrifies,” CEO Cathy Zoi said in a statement.
EVgo’s “network throughput” is a measure of the total amount of electricity provided to its charging customers. That figure grew 147% year over year to 24.9 gigawatt-hours in the second quarter, and by about 30% per individual charging stall, on average.
The increased throughput is a result of more EVs on the road, more powerful EV batteries that require more power to charge, and increased utilization of EVgo’s chargers, the company said.

EVgo also reported significant growth in its “eXtend” unit, which provides and manages chargers for business clients under those businesses’ own brands. Revenue from eXtend totaled about $33.3 million in the second quarter, or nearly 66% of EVgo’s total revenue for the period. 
General Motors, truck-stop operator Pilot and banking giant Chase are among the businesses that have signed up for the eXtend program.
As of June 30, EVgo had approximately 3,200 fast charging stalls in operation or under construction, up from about 3,100 at the end of the first quarter. The company added more than 82,000 new customer accounts during the period, for a total of about 688,000 as of June 30, up 55% year over year.
EVgo now expects revenue between $120 million and $150 million for the full year, up from $105 million to $150 million in its prior guidance. It now expects an adjusted EBITDA loss of between $68 million and $78 million, a narrower range than the $60 million to $78 million in its earlier guidance.
EVgo still expects to have between 3,400 and 4,000 fast charging stalls in operation or under construction at year-end, unchanged from its earlier guidance.
EVgo separately announced Wednesday that Zoi will retire from the company in November. Board member Badar Khan, a 25-year veteran of the energy sector and the former president of National Grid’s U.S. operations, will be her successor. More

The Writers Guild of America told striking screenwriters that Carol Lombardini, the studio negotiator, requested to talk Friday about the possibility of resuming negotiations with the guild.
The meeting request doesn’t guarantee that producers and writers will resume talks, but it’s the first sign of movement in a stalemate between the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and the WGA since early May when the strike began.
Fiery rhetoric and striking actors have added pressure to the already tense dynamic.

Picketers walk outside the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, CA on Tuesday, June 6, 2023 as the Writers Guild of America strike enters the sixth week. 
Myung J. Chun | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

As the Hollywood writers strike nears its 100th day and pressure from striking actors mounts, producers are asking for a meeting.
The Writers Guild of America told screenwriters that Carol Lombardini, the studio negotiator, requested to talk Friday about the possibility of resuming negotiations with the guild.

“As we’ve said before, be wary of rumors,” the guild warned members Tuesday. “Whenever there is important news to share, you will hear it directly from us.”
The meeting request doesn’t guarantee that producers and writers will resume talks, but it’s the first sign of movement in a stalemate between the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and the WGA since early May when the strike began.
The request comes as pressure on the AMPTP to resolve the labor disputes has mounted in recent weeks.
Tens of thousands of actors joined the picket lines last month, bringing Hollywood productions to a standstill and marking the first simultaneous actors’ and writers’ strikes since 1960.
The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), led by president Fran Drescher, has towed a hard line with the AMPTP, publicly criticizing studio executives and holding firm to their demands.

Hollywood performers are looking to improve wages, working conditions, and health and pension benefits, as well as create guardrails for the use of artificial intelligence in future television and film productions. Additionally, the union is seeking more transparency from streaming services about viewership so that residual payments can be made equitable to linear TV.
“As we’ve stated publicly and privately every day since July 12, we are ready willing and able to return to the table at any time,” said Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA national executive director and chief negotiator. “We have not heard from the AMPTP since July 12 when they told us they would not be willing to continue talks for quite some (time). The only way a strike comes to an end is through the parties talking and we urge them to return to the table so that we can get the industry back to work as soon as possible.”
The AMPTP said in a statement it remains “committed to finding a path to mutually beneficial deals with both unions.”

Pressure building

Fiery rhetoric from the acting guild, including the public damnation of Disney CEO Bob Iger, may have helped push producers to seek resumption of talks with the writers.
That’s on top of mounting tension with industry scribes. Reports surfaced last month about tactics studio producers allegedly planned to implement against writers, including waiting months for workers to run out of money and possibly lose their homes, thus forcing them to come to the bargaining table.
While the AMPTP has denied these reports, studio executives have remained outspoken about what they consider unreasonable contract requests.
The WGA is seeking higher compensation and residuals, particularly when it comes to streaming shows, as well as new rules that will require studios to staff television shows with a certain number of writers for a specific period.
The guild also is seeking compensation throughout the process of pre-production, production and post-production. Currently, writers are often expected to provide revisions or craft new material, often without being paid.
The WGA also shares similar concerns over the use of artificial intelligence when it comes to script writing.
Exacerbating matters for Hollywood producers is the shutdown of film and television productions, which has led to release date chaos. Movies set for next year are already shifting and the upcoming fall television season is expected to be interrupted.
Even films that have been completed could move on the calendar, as actors are not permitted to promote projects, hindering marketing efforts.
Media companies have been contending with ramped up cord-cutting of the traditional pay TV bundle — which remains a cash cow, even as it’s dwindling — and working to make streaming businesses profitable.
While media companies have said their slates for streaming and traditional TV are in good shape for the fall — particularly Netflix, which has a deep vault of content to be released, as well as international programming — the strikes could cause further chaos in an industry that is going through a tumultuous period.
Iger said on CNBC recently that the stoppage couldn’t occur at a worse time, noting “disruptive forces on this business and all the challenges that we’re facing” on top of the industry still recovering from the pandemic.
Other issues include the soft advertising market due to macroeconomic concerns and uncertainly. While advertisers have been putting more dollars toward streaming, traditional TV has taken a hit. The work stoppage hasn’t played a big role in conversations with advertisers yet, although if it carries into the new year it could cause hiccups, according to advertising industry executives.
Netflix and NBCUniversal parent company Comcast recently said during earnings calls they’re committed to reaching a solution with the writers and actors. Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global report their earnings on Thursday and Monday, respectively.
Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC. NBCUniversal is a member of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. More

ESPN has held talks with the NBA, NFL, MLB and the NHL on being minority partners in the network.
ESPN likely will not launch a direct-to-consumer product before 2025, sources said.
While Iger would prefer to keep a majority stake in ESPN, Disney executives would consider a full spin of ESPN if they can’t reach a deal to do so, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Disney CEO Bob Iger speaking with CNBC’s David Faber at the Allen&Co. Annual Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. 
David A. Grogan | CNBC

Disney CEO Bob Iger has taken the unusual step of paying former executives Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs a consulting fee to help him solve a complex problem: what to do with ESPN.
Mayer and Staggs are the co-CEOs of Candle Media. Both men are close with Iger and have served as informal advisors to him in the past. They’re working with ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro on the strategic options for ESPN and, to a lesser degree, Disney’s other linear cable networks.

Iger is looking for new ways to jumpstart ESPN because the rate of U.S. cable cancellations has accelerated. In years past, ESPN could still generate revenue growth by increasing programming fees for pay TV distributors, such as Comcast, Charter and DirecTV.
That dynamic no longer exists. As ESPN revenue declines, it will become a larger anchor on Disney’s earnings. That has prompted Iger to explore different strategic alternatives.
Iger told CNBC’s David Faber last month he has had become more confident about when ESPN will launch a direct-to-consumer product. ESPN’s best programming is still exclusive to the linear cable TV bundle. Disney offers many of its lower-rated live games on its ESPN+ streaming service, which costs $9.99 per month.
When ESPN does decide to offer an unbundled subscription service, it will likely cause even more people to cancel pay TV. That’s why ESPN has waited so long to go direct to consumer.
Iger declined last month to say when he planned to offer a direct-to-consumer ESPN. It likely won’t be in 2023 or 2024, according to people familiar with the matter.

An ESPN spokesman declined to comment.

Discussions with the leagues

Iger wants to find minority partners to take equity stakes in ESPN. The sports network has held early talks with the National Football League, Major League Baseball, and the National Basketball Association on the concept, CNBC reported last month.
The National Hockey League has also been involved in these conversations, according to people familiar with the matter. An NHL spokesperson declined to comment.
Selling a part of ESPN to four professional sports leagues would be unprecedented. The leagues are focused on transitioning their products to a streaming-dominated landscape. Taking a stake in ESPN and having the network’s expertise in building an all-sports subscription service could help the leagues create a unified product and navigate the new economics outside of the traditional TV bundle.
But a deal might also irritate their existing media partners and create potential conflicts of interest. Leagues would have a vested interest in ESPN’s success if they owned equity stakes. That may not help the leagues maximize sports rights valuations, which have traditionally risen due to bidding wars among media and technology companies such as Comcast’s NBCUniversal, Fox, Paramount Global, Warner Bros. Discovery, Apple, Alphabet and Amazon.
If ESPN can’t find a suitable deal for minority partners, it has not ruled out a full spin of the network, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Iger has resisted spinning off ESPN in the past and told CNBC he wanted to stay in the sports business. Mayer, who was executive vice president of corporate strategy at Disney before running the streaming business, has been more open minded about spinning off ESPN when he previously worked at Disney, according to people familiar with the matter.
Mayer left the company in 2020 to take the CEO job at TikTok. He declined to comment.
Iger told Faber last month that he wasn’t “necessarily” interested in spinning off ESPN as a separately traded company. The focus for Mayer, Staggs and Pitaro is finding a way where Disney can keep a majority stake in ESPN, according to people familiar with the matter. Disney currently owns 80% of ESPN and Hearst holds 20%.
Iger is looking for partners who bring advantages to ESPN in either content or distribution. Still it’s unclear if another strategic company would have any interest in owning a minority stake in ESPN. If Disney is the majority owner, it would control the fate of the network. More

BIG LAW enjoys a long life. More

GlaxoSmithKline sued Pfizer in U.S. court, alleging patent infringement over GSK’s respiratory syncytial virus vaccine. 
Pfizer’s RSV vaccine infringes on four of GSK’s patents related to the antigen used in its own shot, Britain-based GSK wrote in a scathing complaint filed in federal court in Delaware. 
Both vaccines were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in adults 60 and above.

Jun Li | Istock | Getty Images

GlaxoSmithKline on Wednesday sued Pfizer in U.S. court, alleging patent infringement over Britain-based GSK’s respiratory syncytial virus vaccine. 
GSK claims New York-based Pfizer’s RSV vaccine, Abrysvo, infringes on four of its patents related to the antigen used in its own shot.

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“Upon information and belief, Pfizer knowingly uses GSK’s claimed inventions in Abrysvo without permission,” GSK wrote in a scathing complaint filed in federal court in Delaware.
Both vaccines were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in May for use in adults 60 and above. Some doses are already available to the public at retail pharmacies like Walgreens.
RSV is a common respiratory infection that usually causes mild, cold-like symptoms, but more severe cases in older adults and children. Each year, it kills 6,000 to 10,000 seniors and a few hundred children younger than 5, according to CDC data.
GSK is demanding a jury trial and seeking monetary damages, including lost profits and royalties resulting from Pfizer’s alleged patent infringement. 
The British drugmaker is also asking a judge to prevent Pfizer from manufacturing and selling Abrysvo in the U.S. for adults 60 and older.

GSK said it is not seeking to limit the use of Abrysvo for preventing RSV in infants, a separate shot specifically designed to protect newborns. The FDA is expected to make a final decision on that vaccine in August. 

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A Pfizer spokesperson said it is “confident in its intellectual property position and will strongly defend its right to bring its innovative” RSV shot to patients. 
The lawsuit noted that Pfizer began working on its RSV vaccine program as early as 2013, at least seven years after GSK started its own program. 
The suit alleges that Pfizer knew of GSK’s patented technology since at least October 2019, when Pfizer began challenging the validity of European versions of the patents. 
It’s not the first time GSK has waged a legal battle against Pfizer over patent rights. 
GSK in 2016 sued Pfizer in court in Ireland, alleging patent infringement over GSK’s meningitis vaccine.
Moderna last August also sued Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech for patent infringement over its Covid vaccine. Pfizer and BioNTech countersued in December More