Genocea Biosciences Appoints Adel Mahmoud and Robert Finberg to Scientific Advisory Board.

Former President of Merck Vaccines and Chair of Department of Medicine at UMass Medical School bring industry and immunology expertise to cutting edge vaccine discovery company

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Genocea Biosciences, a vaccine discovery and development company, today announced the appointments of Adel Mahmoud, M.D., Ph.D. and Robert Finberg, M.D. to its Scientific Advisory Board.

"With the addition of George Siber and now Adel Mahmoud, Genocea's team boasts vaccine industry leaders who helped launch Wyeth's Prevnar[R] and Merck's Gardasil[R] and MMR[R]-II, some of the most commercially successful vaccines of all time," said Robert Paull, co-founder and President of Genocea.

Dr. Mahmoud was the President of Merck Vaccines from 1999 through 2005. At Merck, Dr. Mahmoud oversaw the company's extensive vaccine portfolio, including its HIV vaccine program; new vaccines for rotavirus, human papillomavirus, and shingles; and a new combination vaccine for measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella.

Prior to joining Merck, Dr. Mahmoud was chairman of medicine and physician-in-chief at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals of Cleveland (1987-1998), and chief of geographic medicine (1977-1987). His academic work has focused on disease control in developing countries. His research in Kenya, Egypt, and the Philippines led to the development of innovative strategies for controlling schistosomiasis and other infectious diseases that have been adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO). He is past President of the International Society for Infectious Diseases and former chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the U.S. National Center for Infectious Diseases. He served as chair of the Institute of Medicine's Forum on Microbial Threats, advising on a range of international health issues including bioterrorism, SARS, and pandemic flu. Born in Cairo, Egypt, Dr. Mahmoud received his medical degree from the University of Cairo. He received his doctorate degree at the University of London, School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, which he attended as a WHO fellow. Dr. Mahmoud currently has a joint appointment at Princeton University in the Woodrow Wilson School as a senior policy analyst and as a professor in the Department of Molecular Biology.

"Antigen discovery is the largest driver of value-creation in the vaccine industry," said Dr. Mahmoud. "Genocea's technology has the potential to accelerate vaccine development for some of the world's most complex diseases."

Dr. Finberg is currently Chair of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Professor of Medicine and Molecular Genetics and Microbiology. Previously, he was Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Infectious Disease Program at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Dr. Finberg is also Chair of the Department of Medicine at UMass Memorial Healthcare and is internationally known for his work on host responses to infections and treatment of immuno-compromised patients. Dr. Finberg trained in Immunology with Baruj Benacerraf at Harvard Medical School and is an expert on T-cell responses to viruses and bacteria. He has been conducting research in the area of immunological responses to infectious agents for the past 30 years.

"Genocea's technology represents a substantial leap forward in the ability to identify clinically-relevant T-cell antigens and will allow us to rapidly develop vaccines that provide long-lived immunity without toxicity," Finberg added.

Dr. Mahmoud and Dr. Finberg will join a world-class Scientific Advisory Board, which includes Penny J. Hitchcock, D.V.M., former Chief of Sexually Transmitted Diseases, National Institutes of Health; Ian Gust, Former Director of Research, CSL Ltd.; Peter Hutt, LL.M., former Chief Legal Counsel, Food & Drug Administration; and Una S. Ryan, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer, AVANT Immunotherapeutics.

"The addition of Drs. Finberg and Mahmoud provide leading immunology expertise and commercialization experience that will advance Genocea's antigen discovery technology and vaccine development platforms," said Scientific Co-founder Darren Higgins.

Formed in 2006 from technology developed at University of California at Berkeley by Dr. Darren Higgins, Genocea Biosciences is focused on identifying antigens for the next generation of novel vaccines. Dr. Higgins, currently Associate Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical School, co-founded Genocea with Dr. David Sinclair, Associate Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School, and with leading venture capital firms Lux Capital Management and Polaris Venture Partners.

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. Visit www.genocea.com for more information.