The vaccine frontier
The 20-year gap
is closing.
The last Lyme vaccine was pulled from the U.S. market in 2002. For two decades, prevention meant long sleeves and tick checks. That era is ending: the pipeline is the most active it has ever been — led by a vaccine that just showed more than 70% efficacy in a 9,000-person Phase 3 trial.
476,000
Americans diagnosed & treated for Lyme disease every year — CDC estimate
Why a vaccine matters
Prevention that doesn’t depend on catching the bite.
Today’s best prevention — the single-dose antibiotic we provide — only works if you notice the tick and act inside 72 hours. Most bites are never felt. A vaccine changes the arithmetic entirely: protection that’s already in place before the tick ever finds you.
Three shots on goal
Three ways to stop it.
Three programs, three different strategies — a classic vaccine, an mRNA vaccine, and a ready-made antibody. Only one is near the finish line, and we’re watching all of them.
VLA15 · Pfizer + Valneva
Protein vaccine · Phase 3The frontrunner. A three-dose vaccine that trains the immune system against OspA — a protein on the tick’s gut — so the bacteria are neutralised inside the tick, before they ever reach you. Phase 3 read out >70% efficacy in 2026, with an FDA filing planned the same year.
mRNA candidates · Moderna
mRNA vaccine · Phase 1/2The same mRNA platform behind modern COVID vaccines, aimed at Lyme. Early human trials are underway to test safety and immune response, with data expected later this decade. Years behind VLA15, but a different, fast-iterating technology.
Lyme PrEP · MassBiologics → Tonix
Antibody shot · Phase 1Not a vaccine — a single pre-season shot of a ready-made antibody that gives a season of protection without waiting for your own immune system to respond. Conceptually the closest cousin to what we do: prevention, given ahead of the bite.
Where we fit
Until it’s here, the 72-hour window is your vaccine.
A vaccine isn’t approved or available yet — and even once VLA15 clears the FDA, it will take seasons to reach arms. In the meantime, a single dose of doxycycline within 72 hours of a high-risk bite is the proven, guideline-backed way to stop Lyme before it starts. When a vaccine does arrive, we’ll be the first to tell you plainly whether it’s right for you.