Chlamydia trachomatis Vaccine

Chlamydia trachomatis is the leading bacterial sexually transmitted disease in the U.S., with an estimated three to four million Americans infected each year. The annual healthcare costs of Chlamydia in the U.S. exceed $2 billion, and the World Health Organization estimates that approximately 92 million new cases of C. trachomatis infection occur annually worldwide.

There is no vaccine for Chlamydia. Despite the availability of antibiotic treatment, Chlamydia remains a significant global health problem; the consequences of lack of treatment can be devastating. Often the infection is silent, and therefore goes untreated, leading to severe consequences. The disease is the most common cause of preventable blindness worldwide, with eight million people visually impaired or blind. Up to 40 percent of untreated women develop pelvic inflammatory disease, which can lead to infertility, ectopic pregnancies, and chronic pelvic pain. Chlamydia can also cause genitourinary and rectal conditions in men.

Genocea's program builds on antigens discovered in the laboratory of the company's scientific founder Darren Higgins, Ph.D., Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical School, and licensed exclusively to the company. The company has discovered additional antigens in extensive screens of ethnically diverse subjects and demonstrated protection in animal models.