Genocea Biosciences Licenses Portfolio of Vaccine Targets from Harvard Medical School

Chlamydia antigens licensed from the labs of Darren Higgins and Michael Starnbach

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Genocea Biosciences, a vaccine discovery and development company, today announced the license to 14 antigens to Chlamydia trachomatis discovered in the lab of Dr. Darren Higgins, Associate Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical School and scientific founder of Genocea.

“A vaccine for chlamydia has the potential to be a billion dollar product”

Chlamydia trachomatis is the leading bacterial sexually transmitted disease (STD) in the United States. An estimated 3 million Americans are infected with Chlamydia each year. The World Health Organization estimates that approximately 92 million new cases of Chlamydia trachomatis infection occur each year worldwide. Chlamydia infections in women can progress to serious reproductive complications that cause irreversible damage, including infertility; often occurring “silently” before a woman ever recognizes a problem. Untreated infection can spread and cause pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), which occurs in up to 40% of women with untreated chlamydia. In the U.S., the annual healthcare costs of chlamydia are estimated to exceed $2 billion.

“A vaccine for chlamydia has the potential to be a billion dollar product,” said Robert Paull, co-founder and President of Genocea Biosciences. “These exclusively licensed Harvard antigens and accompanying immunogenicity data represent early, but promising validation that T cells play an important role in immunopathology and protection against chlamydia.”

“We are gratified that Dr. Higgins’ research at Harvard has yielded these novel targets for further investigation,” said Isaac T. Kohlberg, Harvard University’s Senior Associate Provost and Chief Technology Development Officer. “Genocea is well positioned to undertake development of Dr. Higgins’ findings, and pursue additional discovery in chlamydia and other infectious diseases of growing importance to public health.”

“Chlamydia vaccine development has stumped the vaccine industry, due to the lack of understanding of what this complex intracellular pathogen does to the immune system,” said Penny Hitchcock, Former Chief of the Sexually Transmitted Diseases Program at the NIH and Genocea Scientific Advisory Board member. “Women who have had chlamydial infections appear to develop protective immunity. Genocea’s breakthrough approach can identify what triggers that immunity and use that information to make a vaccine.”

Founded in 2006, Genocea is focused on identifying antigens for the next generation of novel vaccines. By recreating the human immune system in vitro, Genocea can identify which antigenic epitopes will elicit a competent immune response. Genocea is based on technology developed from University of California at Berkeley and Harvard Medical School. The company has assembled a world-class team of vaccine experts from Wyeth Vaccines, Merck Vaccines, CSL Ltd., GlaxoSmithKline, Avant Immunotherapeutics, the National Institutes of Health and the FDA.

About Genocea Biosciences:

Genocea Biosciences is commercializing key breakthroughs in vaccine discovery and development. Genocea can rapidly identify antigens that result in the in vivo stimulation of protective CD8⁺ and CD4⁺ T cells, targets that can be immediately incorporated into existing antigen delivery systems to produce multivalent vaccine formulations that have the highest probability of generating protective cell-mediated immunity. Genocea is backed by leading venture capital firms Lux Capital Management and Polaris Venture Partners. Visit www.genocea.com for more information.