Management Team

Chip Clark

President and Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Clark joins Genocea with over 20 years industry experience. Most recently, Chip co-founded and served as Chief Business Officer of Vanda Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Prior to Vanda, Chip was a Principal at Care Capital, LLC, a venture capital firm investing in biopharmaceutical companies, and served in a variety of commercial roles at SmithKline Beecham (now part of GlaxoSmithKline). Mr. Clark holds a B.A. from Harvard University and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Seth Hetherington, M.D.

Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Hetherington joins Genocea with over twenty-five years of experience in clinical drug development and academic medicine and has made significant contributions to several clinical development programs, including work on the currently marketed pharmaceuticals Ziagen, Trizivir and Agenerase. Most recently, Dr. Hetherington served as Senior Vice President of Clinical and Regulatory Affairs at Icagen. Prior to Icagen, Dr. Hetherington served as Vice President, Clinical Development and Chief Medical Officer at Inhibitex and held various positions of increasing responsibility in clinical drug development at GlaxoSmithKline and Glaxo Wellcome. Dr. Hetherington's has also served as a faculty member at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and held appointments at several leading academic medical centers, including the University of Tennessee, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis and Albany Medical College. Dr Hetherington earned his B.S. at Yale University and his M.D. at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He completed his postgraduate training in pediatrics and pediatric infectious diseases at the University of North Carolina and the University of Minnesota, respectively.

Dr. Hetherington has published extensively in medical and scientific literature, and is board certified in both pediatrics and pediatric infectious diseases. He also served as the industry representative to the Vaccines and Related Blood Products Advisory Committee of the FDA.

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Robert E. Farrell Jr., CPA

Vice President of Finance and Administration

Mr. Farrell joined Genocea after serving as Senior Director of Finance at Magen Biosciences. In that position, he was responsible for all finance and administrative functions and he played a key role in the acquisition of Magen Biosciences by PPD, Inc. Prior to Magen Biosciences, Bob held senior level financial positions at Oscient Pharmaceuticals and NeoGenesis Pharmaceuticals, where he built and directed all financial reporting efforts and helped guide the company through an initial public offering. Bob is a licensed CPA and holds a B.S. degree in Accounting from Bentley College.

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Jessica Baker Flechtner, Ph.D.

Vice President of Research

Dr. Flechtner established the functional laboratory for Genocea and is leading Genocea's research efforts to identify novel T cell antigens for inclusion in vaccines directed against a variety of infectious diseases. Prior to joining Genocea, Dr. Flechtner was an Immunology Consultant at Biovest International, where she guided the development of assays to evaluate the success of the company’s autologous Follicular (Non-Hodgkin's) Lymphoma vaccine in patients. As a researcher at Mojave Therapeutics, Inc. and Antigenics Inc., which acquired Mojave's intellectual property, Dr. Flechtner developed protein and peptide-based vaccines and immunotherapies for cancer, infectious disease, autoimmunity and allergy. She is an inventor on nine pending or issued patents and has multiple peer-reviewed scientific publications.

Dr. Flechtner performed her post-doctoral work in the laboratory of Dr. Harvey Cantor at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School and holds a Ph.D. in Cellular Immunology and B.S. in Animal Science from Cornell University. She is a member of the American Association of Immunologists and the American Association for Cancer Research.

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Paul Giannasca, Ph.D.

Vice President of Development

Dr. Giannasca brings to Genocea 15 years of vaccine and infectious disease research and development experience, most recently at Acambis (now Sanofi Aventis), where he served as Vice President, Development. Prior to Acambis, Paul was a senior scientist at OraVax, where he contributed to the company’s research initiatives for several vaccines, focusing on evaluating vaccine adjuvants and elucidating mechanisms of vaccine-induced protection. Dr. Giannasca holds multiple U.S. patents covering active and passive immunization against C. difficile disease and he has published more than 25 papers in the areas of infectious diseases, vaccine development, active and passive immunization, and vaccine-induced protection.

Dr. Giannasca received his B.S. in Biology from Fairleigh Dickinson University and his Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He completed his post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School/Children’s Hospital Boston.

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Ravi Venkataramani, Ph.D.

Vice President of Business Development

Dr. Venkataramani has more than 10 years experience in corporate strategy, portfolio management and deal making. Most recently, he served as the director of business development at MedImmune. While at MedImmune, he led several key strategic, product and technology deals that in aggregate were worth $150 million in upfront value plus $1.5 billion in contingent milestones. In addition, he shared responsibilities for building and managing the respiratory, immunology and autoimmunity drug portfolio of the company. Prior to joining MedImmune, he advised senior management of Fortune‐100 clients on all aspects of corporate strategy and execution at Booz, Allen & Hamilton (now Booz & Co). He holds a B.S. from the University of Wisconsin and a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biophysics from the University of Pennsylvania.

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