BTIG Reiterates Buy Rating on Vaxcyte (PCVX)

BTIG analyst Tom Shrader reiterated a Buy rating and $89.00 price target on Vaxcyte (NASDAQ: PCVX).

The analyst comments "Great data and better than management's detailed predictions. By the historical bar for non-inferiority (LBCI>0.50) every serotype available in other vaccines (PCV20 and PCV21) is covered by VAX-31. The attempt to raise the bar for future technologies by raising the non-inferiority hurdle to LBCI>0.667 (approximately no worse than 67% of other vaccines) looked nearly as successful, as all 20 of 20 comparisons with PCV20 met this hurdle while 17 of 19 comparisons to PCV21 met it as well (Exhibit 1). In detail, only serotypes 3 and 12F fell short of the 0.667 threshold versus Capvaxive (Exhibit 2) — and serotype 3 is well known to be an outlier where the current vaccines don't work very well, whatever their immunogenicity. Going forward, the company commented that they still believe they have headroom to add additional serotypes, but the medical necessity seems many years off. There was some caution around expanding today's very strong readout to the pediatric space - where the results are more mixed than today's near running of the table. That being said, VAX-31 will have much broader coverage than PCV20 in children and PCV21 is approved only in children >2 years that are considered at risk after their primary vaccination (likely PCV20). In addition, today's readout suggested improvements in VAX-31 for some of the serotypes where the components of VAX-31 were increased to give higher immunogenicity (22F was noted as an important improvement). Management cautioned about cross-walking these indications, but the chances that the new VAX-31 is better than VAX-31 against PCV20 in babies seems high. The relative comparisons may still not be perfect, but prior ACIP discussions suggest that a miss still provides some protection and is probably better than an omission. Better than our high expectations. Our expectations, consistent with management's guidance, were that VAX-31 would deliver a handful of Non-Inferiority misses in OPUS-1 — one versus PCV20 and up to five versus Capvaxive — with several of those formally rescued by the either/or analytical structure embedded in the trial design. The actual results came in materially better than that base case, representing what management described on the results call as a "clean sweep" of all 32 prespecified co-primary endpoints that exceeded even their own expectations. Some serotype specific details are below, but the robust response to serotype 4 seems a key driver of future uptake as KOLs we have talked with have suggested its omission in PCV21 is a concern."

For an analyst ratings summary and ratings history on Vaxcyte click here. For more ratings news on Vaxcyte click here.

Shares of Vaxcyte closed at $56.48 yesterday.

You May Also Be Interested In

• Vaxcyte (PCVX) PT Raised to $122 at Needham
• Barclays Downgrades PTC Inc. (PTC) to Equalweight
• Nu Holdings (NU) 22K contracts of October 9 weekly 15.5 calls, share price up 13.3%