Thursday, February 19, 2009

Bakali takes CEO post at Genocea Biosciences

By Mass High Tech staff

Vaccine development startup Genocea Biosciences Inc. has raised $23 million in a first round of financing, appointing Staph Leavenworth Bakali as CEO in the process. GlaxoSmithKline’s venture arm SR One led the Series A round, which got additional funding support from new backers Cycad Group, Auriga Partners and Alexandria Real Estate Equities, as well as returning investors Polaris Venture Partners, Lux Capital Management and Morningside Ventures.

Leavenworth Bakali takes over the CEO position from Genocea co-founder Robert Paull, managing general partner of Lux Capital Management, who will continue to serve on the Genocea board of directors.

Leavenworth Bakali was appointed executive director of the company’s board in July. He carries leadership experience in the vaccine realm from his former position as chief operating officer at ID Biomedical Corp., an influenza vaccine-focused company in Vancouver. Before ID Biomedical, Leavenworth Bakali served as chief operating officer of PowderJect Pharmaceuticals plc in Oxford, England; director of worldwide sales and marketing at Chiron Vaccines, a business of Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics Inc.; and director of vaccine business unit of SmithKline Beecham plc in France.

Genocea Biosciences was founded in 2006 and is based on developments from the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard Medical School. It uses a high-speed screening system that can identify which of a disease’s thousands of proteins, or antigens, would elicit an immune response in humans.