Cambridge, MA, November 18, 2013—Genocea Biosciences, Inc., a clinical-stage company developing novel T cell vaccines, announced today that Katrine Bosley, who previously served as an independent board member, has been named Chairman of the Board of Directors. Previous Chairman, George Siber, M.D., will continue to serve as an Executive Director on the Company’s Board of Directors and head of the Company’s Scientific Advisory Board.
“We are fortunate to continue to draw on Katrine and George’s expertise,” said Chip Clark, CEO of Genocea. “George, a leading authority on vaccines, will continue to play a central role in our portfolio development. Katrine’s business experience will help guide our continued growth as a company. Together, the new roles for Katrine and George support our ambition to continue to advance pioneering new vaccines.”
Genocea’s lead programs include GEN-003, a therapeutic vaccine candidate designed to treat people infected with Herpes Simplex Virus type 2 (HSV-2), and GEN-004, a vaccine candidate to prevent infections caused by Pneumococcus. Genocea reported positive interim Phase 1/2a data for GEN-003, including a highly statistically significant 51% reduction in viral shedding in a late-breaker oral presentation at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC 2013) in September.
Katrine Bosley is currently the Entrepreneur-in-Residence at The Broad Institute. She is the former CEO of Avila Therapeutics (acquired by Celgene) and prior to that was VP of business development at Adnexus Therapeutics (acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb). Katrine also held roles in business development, commercial operations, and portfolio strategy at Biogen Idec and led the in-licensing of Tysabri® (natalizumab) among a number of other transactions. Earlier, she was part of the healthcare team at the venture firm Highland Capital Partners. Katrine is currently a Board member of Galapagos NV and of Coco Therapeutics Ltd. and is a review committee member for The Wellcome Trust.
George Siber, M.D., most recently EVP and Chief Scientific Officer of Wyeth Vaccines, is a leading authority on vaccines. While at Wyeth, George oversaw the development and approval of multiple widely-used childhood vaccines, including Prevnar®, a pneumococcal vaccine which has achieved multibillion dollar revenues; Acel-Imune®, an acellular pertussis vaccine; and Meningitec®, a meningococcal meningitis vaccine. Prior to Wyeth, George was director of the Massachusetts Public Health Biologic Laboratories and a Harvard Medical School Associate Professor of Medicine at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. During this time George led research and manufacturing of multiple vaccines and immune globulins.
To learn more about Genocea, please visit www.genocea.com.
About Genocea Biosciences, Inc.
Genocea is harnessing the power of T cell immunity to develop the next generation of vaccines. T cells are increasingly recognized as a critical element of a protective immune response to a wide range of infectious disease pathogens, but are difficult to target using traditional vaccine discovery methods. Genocea is able to identify protective T cell antigens in humans exposed to a pathogen using ATLAS™, its proprietary technology platform, potentially enabling vaccines against pathogens for which no vaccines or vaccines with limited effectiveness exist today. Genocea’s pipeline of novel T cell vaccines includes GEN-003 for HSV-2 therapy, GEN-004, a protein vaccine directed at Pneumococcus, and earlier-stage programs in chlamydia, HSV-2 prophylaxis, and malaria.
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