Af­ter go­ing head-to-head with Pre­vnar 20, Vax­cyte's 24-va­lent pneu­mo­coc­cal shot will seek a piv­otal win

Is a scrap­py Cal­i­for­nia biotech ready to take on Big Phar­ma’s heavy hit­ters in pneu­mo­coc­cal shots? We’re about to find out.

Vax­cyte, a Bay Area com­pa­ny with few­er than 150 em­ploy­ees, tout­ed Phase I/II da­ta from its 24-va­lent vac­cine Mon­day morn­ing show­ing the shot was just as safe as Pfiz­er’s re­cent­ly ap­proved Pre­vnar 20 — a 20-va­lent vac­cine. On top of that, Vax­cyte’s shot, dubbed VAX-24, in­duced greater im­mune re­spons­es in 16 of the 20 va­lents it shares with Pfiz­er’s vac­cine.

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