On November 1, 2018 Genocea Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: GNCA), a biopharmaceutical company developing neoantigen cancer immunotherapies, reported its financial and operating results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2018 (Press release, Genocea Biosciences, NOV 1, 2018, View Source [SID1234530574]).

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"In the year since our strategic pivot, we have made significant progress by advancing our lead cancer vaccine candidate, GEN-009, into the clinic and using our ATLAS platform to identify and characterize the T cell responses cancer patients make to both tumor-associated antigens and neoantigens," said Chip Clark, president & CEO of Genocea. "We continue to believe that ATLAS, which lets patients’ own T cells identify the optimal antigens for their cancer immunotherapies, stands apart from peer approaches that instead rely on software to predict antigens. We believe that the next evidence for this will emerge from our upcoming presentations at SITC (Free SITC Whitepaper) and then from the first patient cohort in our Phase 1/2a clinical trial for GEN-009, from which we expect to report immunogenicity data in the first half of 2019."

Recent Milestones & Events
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October 2018: Announced multiple presentations at the upcoming meeting of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) (Free SITC Whitepaper) (SITC 2018) taking place November 7-11, 2018 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. These posters further highlight the advantages of Genocea’s ATLAS platform over in silico methods in identifying both neoantigens for vaccine inclusion and "inhibitory" neoantigens for exclusion. Genocea believes that the "inhibitory" antigen findings may point to novel biological insights only available through ATLAS. The following posters will be presented simultaneously on Saturday, November 10 from 12:20 – 1:50 p.m. and 7:00 – 8:30 p.m. ET in Poster Hall E:
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Poster Number: P154
Title: Empiric profiling of neoantigen-specific T cell responses in NSCLC patients with ATLAS reveals unexpected neoantigen and inhibitory antigen profiles
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Poster Number: P166
Title: Ex vivo ATLAS-identified inhibitory neoantigens promote mouse melanoma tumor progression
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Poster Number: P174
Title: A phase 1/2a study to evaluate the safety, tolerability, immunogenicity, and anti-tumor activity of GEN-009 adjuvanted neoantigen vaccine in adult patients with selected solid tumors
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October 2018: Strengthened its leadership team with the addition of Thomas Davis, M.D. as Chief Medical Officer and Derek Meisner, J.D., as General Counsel. Dr. Davis joins Genocea with 20+ years of academic

and industry experience in immuno-oncology and cancer drug development. Mr. Meisner brings broad legal expertise to Genocea as the company’s first General Counsel.

Third Quarter 2018 Financial Results
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Cash Position: As of September 30, 2018, cash and cash equivalents were $34.5 million compared to $12.3 million, as of December 31, 2017.
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Research and Development (R&D) Expenses: R&D expenses were $6.4 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2018, compared to $10.2 million for the same period in 2017. The decrease was due largely to reduced headcount-related costs, external development, clinical, and consulting costs.
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General and Administrative (G&A) Expenses: G&A expenses were $4.1 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2018, compared to $3.8 million for the same period in 2017. The increase was primarily due to increases in professional services expenses, partially offset by decreases in consulting costs.
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Net Loss: Net loss was $7.8 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2018, compared to a net loss of $16.9 million for quarter ended September 30, 2017.

Financial Guidance
Genocea expects that its existing cash and cash equivalents are sufficient to support its operating expenses and capital expenditure requirements into the fourth quarter of 2019.

Genocea continues to explore strategic alternatives for GEN-003, its Phase 3-ready investigational immunotherapy for the treatment of genital herpes.

Conference Call
Genocea will host a conference call and webcast today at 9:00 a.m. ET. The conference call may be accessed by dialing (844) 826-0619 (domestic) or (315) 625-6883 (international) and referring to conference ID number 9864055. A live webcast of the conference call will be available online from the investor relations section of the Company’s website at View Source A webcast replay of the conference call will be available on the Genocea website beginning approximately two hours after the event and will be archived for 90 days.