Genocea Biosciences Hires Chip Clark as Chief Business Officer
Industry Veteran Brings Extensive Strategic and Business Development Experience to Novel Vaccine Company
Cambridge, Mass. - August 12, 2010 - Genocea Biosciences, a vaccine discovery and development company pioneering a new class of T cell based vaccines, today announced the appointment of Chip Clark to the position of chief business officer. Mr. Clark joins Genocea with 20 years of biotechnology and pharmaceutical experience with a focus on commercial, business development and venture capital financing.
"We are very pleased to welcome Chip to Genocea's management team," said Staph Leavenworth Bakali, president and chief executive officer of Genocea. "Chip's extensive biotech and pharmaceutical experience, combined with his proven track record of leadership, will be invaluable to Genocea's commercial and business development efforts as we continue to advance our strategy to develop and commercialize breakthrough vaccines for the treatment of infectious diseases."
"Using its unique discovery platform, Genocea is poised to unlock multibillion dollar market opportunities. The industry has struggled for decades to develop vaccines that target T cells to prevent diseases," said Mr. Clark. "I am excited to join Genocea at this important time in the company's evolution as it prepares to enter the clinic in 2011 with its lead program, a therapeutic vaccine for herpes simplex virus type 2."
Most recently, Mr. Clark was chief business officer at Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc., a biopharmaceutical company he co-founded in 2004. While at Vanda, he lead the company's strategic and business development activities, which included completing a licensing deal with Novartis worth $200 million upfront plus $265 million in additional milestones, and playing a central role in raising more than $220 million in multiple public and private financings. Prior to joining Vanda, Mr. Clark was a principal at Care Capital, LLC, a venture capital firm investing in biopharmaceutical companies. Before Care Capital, he spent 10 years at SmithKline Beecham (now part of GlaxoSmithKline) in a variety of commercial roles. Mr. Clark holds a B.A. from Harvard University and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
About Genocea
Genocea Biosciences is accelerating vaccine discovery and development for major infectious diseases with high unmet medical need. The company's proprietary T cell-directed antigen discovery program represents a broad platform with the potential to generate novel therapeutic and prophylactic vaccines for multiple pathogens. This transformational platform dramatically reduces the time to discover vaccine candidates by uniquely employing a high-throughput approach that mimics the natural immune response to comprehensively screen for antigens that are protective across diverse human populations. Genocea is currently developing vaccines for Chlamydia trachomatis (a sexually transmitted disease agent causing an estimated 90 million cases worldwide), Streptococcus pneumoniae (the leading killer of children under the age of five worldwide), malaria (over 100 million cases globally) and has a lead program for herpes simplex virus type 2 (45 million infected in the United States). Founded in 2006, Genocea is backed by leading investors including Lux Capital Management, Polaris Venture Partners, SR One, the corporate venture arm of GlaxoSmithKline, Auriga Partners, Cycad Group, Morningside Ventures and Alexandria Real Estate Equities. Visit www.genocea.com for more information.
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