Tilt­ing at vac­cines gi­ants, SutroVax fu­els up on a $170M-plus quest to vault past the world's best-sell­ing vac­cine

A lit­tle biotech tilt­ing against gi­ants in the glob­al vac­cines busi­ness has just lined up an $85 mil­lion round to back their clin­i­cal quest aimed at con­quer­ing the pneu­mo­coc­cal con­ju­gate vac­cine busi­ness. And they’ve added crossover in­vestors — as well as a world-fa­mous vac­cines hon­cho — in the round as they con­tin­ue to plot out a risky path for­ward in­to a mega-block­buster mar­ket.

Glax­o­SmithK­line’s ex-vac­cines chief Mon­cef Slaoui is com­ing on board as chair­man of SutroVax as the Fos­ter City, CA-based biotech push­es past the $170 mil­lion mark on fundrais­ing. All that mon­ey, plus every­thing to come, is rid­ing on the be­lief that the Sutro spin­out has re­li­able tech that can whip up a first-in-class prod­uct that con­ju­gates a big clus­ter of anti­gens to site-spe­cif­ic lo­ca­tions on a pro­tein car­ri­er with­out hob­bling T-cell helpers, build­ing a bet­ter vac­cine the gi­ants can’t touch.

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