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By Blake Brittain

April 24 (Reuters) - German biotech company CureVac sued Moderna in Delaware federal court on ‌Friday, alleging that Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine Spikevax ‌infringed CureVac patents related to messenger RNA (mRNA) technology.

CureVac said in the ​lawsuit that Moderna copied its technology for stabilizing fragile mRNA to use in vaccines and requested royalties from Moderna's Spikevax sales in damages.

Germany-based BioNTech -- which partnered with Pfizer ‌to create the ⁠competing COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty -- acquired CureVac last year. BioNTech filed a separate U.S. patent ⁠lawsuit against Moderna over its next-generation mNEXSPIKE COVID-19 shot in February.

Moderna said in a statement that it was aware ​of the ​lawsuit filed on Friday ​and will defend itself. ‌Spokespeople for CureVac and BioNTech did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit.

The case is part of a wave of high-stakes patent lawsuits from biotech companies seeking royalties for the technology used in ‌blockbuster COVID-19 vaccines. Moderna sued ​Pfizer and BioNTech for patent ​infringement over Comirnaty ​in 2022, in a lawsuit that is ‌ongoing.

Companies including GlaxoSmithKline, Bayer and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals have also ​filed patent lawsuits ​seeking shares of the companies' tens of billions of dollars of revenue from COVID-19 vaccine sales.

CureVac's ​Friday lawsuit accused ‌Moderna of infringing eight of its U.S. patents.

(Reporting ​by Blake Brittain in Washington, Editing by ​Alexia Garamfalvi and Edward Tobin)