Vaxcyte prices $750M offering, one of biotech’s largest, as it goes up against Big Pharma’s pneumococcal vaccines

It’ll take a lot of cap­i­tal and re­sources to go up against Pfiz­er, Mer­ck, GSK, Sanofi and oth­ers in the pneu­mo­coc­cal vac­cine field.

So, San Car­los, CA-based Vax­cyte will seek one of the largest pub­lic of­fer­ings in re­cent biotech mem­o­ry.

Vax­cyte’s re­quest for $750 mil­lion, in an of­fer­ing priced late Tues­day night, would ri­val on­ly a few oth­er bio­phar­mas who have gone back to the mar­ket for ad­di­tion­al fi­nanc­ing on the heels of big da­ta read­outs or plans for large, late-stage stud­ies. Eu­ro­pean drug­mak­er ar­genx hauled in near­ly $1.3 bil­lion last sum­mer, and schiz­o­phre­nia biotech Karuna Ther­a­peu­tics, now be­ing bought by Bris­tol My­ers Squibb, se­cured $862 mil­lion in an Au­gust 2022 pub­lic of­fer­ing.

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