Scientist II, Formulation & Biophysical Characterization
Vaxcyte
San Carlos, CA, USA
Posted on Tuesday, July 11, 2023
Company Profile:
Vaxcyte, Inc. (Nasdaq: PCVX) is a vaccine innovation company engineering high-fidelity vaccines to protect humankind from the consequences of bacterial diseases. The Company is developing broad-spectrum conjugate and novel protein vaccines to prevent or treat bacterial infectious diseases. Vaxcyte’s lead candidate, VAX-24, is a 24-valent, broad-spectrum, carrier-sparing pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) being developed for the prevention of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD). The Company is re-engineering the way highly complex immunizations are made through modern synthetic techniques, including advanced chemistry and our exclusively licensed XpressCFTM cell-free protein synthesis platform. Unlike conventional cell-based approaches, the Company’s system for producing difficult-to-make proteins and antigens is intended to accelerate its ability to efficiently create and deliver high-fidelity vaccines with enhanced immunological benefits. Vaxcyte’s pipeline also includes VAX-31, a 31-valent PCV candidate; VAX-A1, a prophylactic vaccine candidate designed to prevent Group A Strep infections; VAX-PG, a therapeutic vaccine candidate designed to slow or stop the progression of periodontal disease; and VAX-GI, a vaccine program designed to prevent Shigella. The Company is driven to eradicate or treat invasive bacterial infections, which have serious and costly health consequences when left unchecked. For more information, visit www.vaxcyte.com.
Vaxcyte, headquartered in San Carlos, CA, went public in June 2020 and currently has a team of approximately 180 employees and anticipates continued, significant growth. Following equity offerings in October 2022 and April 2023, which generated over $1.1 billion in net proceeds, the Company’s balance sheet is further strengthened to advance its pipeline of novel vaccines, including VAX-24. These financings followed positive data readouts from Vaxcyte’s Phase 1/2 proof-of-concept study evaluating VAX-24 in adults aged 18-64 and Phase 2 study in adults 65 and older. The Company believes these results support a best-in-class potential for VAX-24, which was designed to replace the current standard-of-care in adults and children. VAX-24 is being investigated for the prevention of IPD, which can be most serious for infants, young children, older adults and those with immune deficiencies or certain chronic health conditions. Given the global impact of pneumococcal disease remains significant, the public health community continues to advocate for vaccines that can offer broader protection to prevent IPD. Vaxcyte’s PCV franchise, consisting of VAX-24 and VAX-31, is designed specifically to address this need and has the potential to deliver the broadest protection for this very serious disease. We believe that our PCVs could receive regulatory approval based on successful completion of clinical studies utilizing well-defined surrogate immune endpoints, consistent with how other PCVs have obtained regulatory approval in the past, rather than requiring clinical field efficacy studies.
Summary:
Vaxcyte is looking for an energetic and talented individual to join our Formulation and Drug Product Development team.
The candidate will have extensive knowledge and practical experience in formulation development of vaccines, preferably adjuvant containing formulations, complemented with a broad range of vaccines analytical techniques and in particularly in-depth experience in biophysical characterization of formulations. The candidate will have a strong industry based experience in bringing a product from early to late-stage development, including process scale-up and manufacturing. Having worked with external analytical and manufacturing CMOs would be beneficial as well as a good understanding of GxP testing and manufacturing guidelines.
This position is for a scientific role which will be mostly lab based, which will require excellent scientific judgement, independence, rigor and thorough record keeping.
The primary responsibility for the incumbent will be to facilitate formulation development activities of Vaxcyte’s lead product candidate post Ph1/2, through Phase 3 and culminating in BLA filing and commercial manufactures.
Essential Functions:
- Develop biophysical and calorimetric techniques to fully understand antigen conformational stability, antigen/adjuvant interactions and to assess the impact of stress conditions such as thermal, mechanical and freezing on the stability of vaccine antigens.
- Support formulation development activities, including stability studies for thermal, freeze/thaw, and agitation as well as container closure system evaluation for both Drug Substance (DS) and Drug Product (DP) materials.
- Work with external analytical and manufacturing CMOs to enable tech transfer and implementation of processes and analytical methods.
Requirements:
- BSc or MSc in Pharmaceutics, Chemistry, Biophysics or Biochemistry preferred, with >4 years of industrial experience; or PhD in Pharmaceutics, Chemistry, Biophysics or Biochemistry with >2 years of relevant experience.
- Experience with biophysical and calorimetric methodologies such as Circular Dichroism, Fourier Transformed Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy, Fluorescence Spectroscopy, Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and Isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC)
- The candidate should have experience in designing and executing experiments to evaluate the thermal stability of vaccine formulations, including conducting forced degradation and stability studies. Additionally, the candidate should have experience in the use of statistical analysis and Design of Experiments (DoE) for complex system optimization.
- Experience in particle characterization methodologies, such as dynamic light scattering, laser diffraction, microflow imaging, quantitative subvisible particle analysis, visible analysis, would be a distinct advantage.
- Experience in developing proteins, polysaccharides and/or protein conjugates formulations for vaccines, preferably vaccine systems containing adjuvants (other biological experience also considered) would be a plus.
- Strong scientific leadership is required: critical thinking, ability to present complex data sets and to independently propose and design follow-up experiments.
- The candidate should have high degrees of both flexibility and organizational skills as well as an eagerness and ability to learn in order to effectively navigate Vaxcyte’s multiple projects and timelines.
- Strong interpersonal skills; ability to communicate effectively both verbally and in written formats (must be able to work with managerial and lab team in remote setting when needed) are necessary to collaborate effectively with the rest of the Formulation and Drug Product Development team and well as across other teams.
- Detail oriented, rigorous and excellent skills in record keeping/documentation.
- All Vaxcyte employees require vaccination against COVID-19.
Reports to: Group Leader, Drug Product Process Development
Location: San Carlos, CA
Compensation:
The compensation package will be competitive and includes comprehensive benefits and an equity component.
Salary Range: $123,000 - $140,000
Send resumes to:
Vaxcyte, Inc.
825 Industrial Road, Suite 300
San Carlos, CA 94070
We are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or veteran status.