Associate Scientist II, Downstream Pilot Plant, Protein Process Development & Manufacturing

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 manage and operate the downstream pilot-scale operations in our San Carlos pilot plant facility within the protein process development and manufacturing group.  This is an opportunity to learn scale up operations with exposure to supply chains, CMOs, and development work. By scaling up production of proteins for Vaxcyte’s clinical pipeline, the pilot plant will not only generate needed materials for development use, but also generate highly valuable data on process performance, consistency, scale up, and reuse.  The successful candidate will have the following skills and qualities: · An exceptional team member that fosters a highly collaborative work environment.· A confident individual who speaks up, is open to input, and remains focused on achieving. the best results to achieve company goals.· A diligent scientist/engineer who enjoys process execution and scale up.· The ability to clearly present data, trend longitudinal data, draw conclusions, and communicate salient points concisely.· A strong sense of ownership and accountability; commitment to Vaxcyte’s mission.

Essential Functions:

• Operate and maintain the Downstream pilot plant production line in Vaxcyte’s San Carlos facility.
• Preparation of buffers, execution of chromatography, tangential flow filtration, and normal flow filtration systems.
• Support for Upstream pilot plant operations.
• Develop and optimize process records that clearly instruct and efficiently facilitate capture of data.
• Schedule and manage logistics of routine pilot production of proteins to support Vaxcyte’s pipeline.
• Support scale up activities for processes as part of technology transfer to CMOs.
• Contribute to process development for protein processes as time allows.
• Run in-p