CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 12, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Genocea Biosciences, Inc., a clinical-stage company pioneering novel T cell vaccines, announced today that it has added Katrine Bosley, a proven biotechnology industry leader, as an independent director.
"Katrine brings a unique and important perspective to our board as we continue to advance our lead programs within this new class of vaccines," said Chip Clark, CEO of Genocea. "The breadth of her experience in creating strategic and business development value will be tremendously important as Genocea develops."
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 Streptococcus pneumoniae. Genocea has fully enrolled its Phase 1/2a study of GEN-003 and expects to report preliminary data in the second half of 2013. The company also anticipates beginning clinical trials in late 2013 for GEN-004.
"Genocea's ability to create T cell-directed vaccines is pioneering and has the potential to significantly extend the range of diseases that can be addressed by vaccines," said Bosley. "The team at Genocea is developing product candidates that tackle tough, important medical problems. This combination of innovation and execution makes Genocea a uniquely exciting company."
Katrine was the CEO of Avila Therapeutics and led the company to establish several strategic alliances prior to its acquisition by Celgene in 2012. Before Avila, Katrine was Vice President, Business Development at Adnexus Therapeutics (acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb). She joined Adnexus from Biogen Idec where she held roles in business development, commercial operations, and portfolio strategy in the U.S. and Europe 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.
About Genocea Biosciences
Genocea Biosciences 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 uniquely able to identify and employ T cell antigens using ATLAS, its proprietary technology platform, which mimics human T cell immune response in the laboratory, potentially improving the effectiveness of vaccine candidates and drastically reducing the time needed to create them.
Genocea's pipeline of novel T cell vaccines includes GEN-003, a clinical-stage program in Herpes Simplex Virus type 2 (HSV-2) therapy, and GEN-004 for Pneumococcus, as well as earlier-stage programs for Chlamydia, HSV-2 prophylaxis, and malaria.
For more information, please visit the company's website at Genocea.com.
For information contact:
Jessica Rowlands
Feinstein Kean Healthcare
202-729-4089
[email protected]
SOURCE Genocea Biosciences, Inc.