Hilleman Labs to supply Bundibugyo Ebola vaccine for clinical trials

Vaxcyte has priced concurrent underwritten public offerings consisting of $500M in equity and $500M in 1.50% convertible senior notes due 2032, for total expected aggregate gross proceeds of $1B. The equity portion comprises 7.41M shares of common stock priced at $64.00 per share, along with pre-funded warrants to purchase 400K common shares at $63.999 per warrant, with an exercise price of $0.001 per share, and underwriters were granted a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1.17M common shares at the public offering price. The senior, unsecured notes carry an annual interest rate of 1.50%, payable semi-annually on April 15 and October 15 starting April 15, 2027, and mature on October 15, 2032, unless earlier repurchased, redeemed, or converted, with an initial conversion rate of 11.1607 shares per $1,000 principal amount, representing an initial conversion price of approximately $89.60 per share, a 40.0% premium over the public equity offering price. Underwriters hold a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional $75M in aggregate principal amount of notes. Vaxcyte plans to deploy the proceeds toward clinical development of its VAX-31 pneumococcal conjugate vaccine candidate in adult and pediatric populations, including the Phase 3 OPUS-2 influenza co-administration trial, the OPUS-3 prior pneumococcal vaccination trial, manufacturing consistency studies, and Phase 2 infant dose-finding studies, as well as manufacturing scale-up, inventory expansion, and global capacity buildout ahead of a potential U.S. adult commercial launch. Both offerings are scheduled to close on October 9, 2026, subject to customary closing conditions, and neither offering is contingent upon the completion of the other.

Pfizer is enforcing a Belgian court judgment against Poland and Romania over unpaid COVID-19 vaccine orders by targeting an unusual source of leverage: air traffic control fees. Eurocontrol, the intergovernmental body that coordinates European air traffic management, has frozen transfers of airline route charges owed to Poland's and Romania's air navigation agencies after Pfizer moved to enforce an April court ruling requiring the two countries to pay a combined roughly $2.1 billion for vaccine doses they declined to accept under a 2021 European Union contract. The Brussels court rejected Poland's and Romania's arguments for abandoning their pandemic-era purchase commitments and ordered them to accept and pay for €1.9 billion, or about $2.2 billion, of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, with Poland accounting for €1.3 billion of that amount and Romania for €600 million. Eurocontrol has already withheld air-navigation fees from Poland and imposed a precautionary seizure tied to Romania, though Poland's air traffic agency says airline fees provide more than 80% of its income and Polish and Romanian aviation authorities have warned that freezing those funds could threaten essential operations and air safety. Both countries are challenging the rulings, and Romania's health minister said the ruling remains enforceable during an appeal.