PharmaTelevision - Benitec: Peter French explains the potential of their gene silencing technology in lung cancer, hepatitis Band neuropathic pain.

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Video title: Benitec: Peter French explains the potential of their gene silencing technology in lung cancer, hepatitis Band neuropathic pain.

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In this episode of PharmaTelevision News Review, Fintatn Walton talks to Peter French, CEO of Benitec

Full video transcripts are available with PharmaTelevision Premium Content. Click here to buy a subscription or sign up for a 14 day free trial.

Successful overcoming of patent litigation issues

Fintan Walton:

Hello and welcome to PharmaTelevision News Review here at AusBiotech's convention in Adelaide. On this show I have Peter French, who is CEO of Benitec which is a company that's based in Melbourne, but has now moved to Sydney, welcome.

Peter French:

Thanks.

Fintan Walton:

Peter, could you just tell us about Benitec it's a gene silencing company, it's been involved in some patent litigation cases and so forth, so could you bring us up to date about where Benitec is at the moment?

Peter French:

Yes happy to do so. Benitec , is a gene silencing company as you said with an extraordinary patent portfolio, we have transformational technology that has the ability to silence a new gene for any human disease and so this gives us fantastic opportunities as well as some challenges, because of the breadth of the patent and the opportunities that we have to target any gene for any disease where we are the small biotechnology company start to do that. Our patent litigation arose in the mid 2000's and continued for number of years with the re-examination of our key major patent in the US at the US patent office. In that time we were having to wait and see how that played out it was difficult for us to progress our programs difficult for us to raise money, difficult for us to expand and in the mean time several deals in the other major gene silencing technology siRNA were been done, major billion dollar deals were been done while we were on the sideline effectively waiting for the patent re-examination to play up. In 2010, late 2010 we were successful at our US patent office board of appeal hearing where they over turned all objections with the US patent office had come up and re-issued the patent earlier this year.

Fintan Walton:

And that's without modification?

Full video transcripts are available with PharmaTelevision Premium Content. Click here to buy a subscription or sign up for a 14 day free trial.

Fintan Walton

Dr Fintan Walton is the Founder and CEO of PharmaVentures . After completing his doctoral research on the genetics of cell proliferation at the University of Michigan(US)and Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland), Dr Walton gained broad commercial experience in biotechnology in management positions at Bass and Celltech plc (1982-1992).

Peter French

CEO

At the time of recording this PTV interview Peter French works as CEO of Benitec Limited. Dr. Peter French is the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Scientific Officer of Benitec Limited. He has an MBA in Technology Management and a PhD in cell and molecular biology, and extensive experience in medical research and biotechnology spanning 33 years. He was Principal Scientist at St Vincent's Hospital Centre for Immunology for 15 years until 2002, and founded publicly listed company Cryosite in 1999. Peter is a Conjoint Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales and Honorary Fellow at Macquarie University. He is a Past President of the Australia and New Zealand Society for Cell and Developmental Biology, is a current member of the Board of the International Society for Differentiation.

PharmaVentures

PharmaVentures is a corporate finance and transactions advisory firm that has served hundreds of clients worldwide in relation to their strategic deal making in the pharmaceutical, life science and healthcare sectors. Our key offerings include: Transactions / deal negotiations; Product / technology valuations; Deal term advice; Due diligence & expert reports; Strategy formulation; Alliance management; and Expert opinion for litigation/arbitration cases. PharmaVentures provides the global expertise to ensure our clients generate the highest possible return on investment from all their deal making activities. We have experience of all therapeutic areas and can offer advice on both product and technology commercialisation.

Benitec Limited

Benitec Limited is a publicly listed (ASX:BLT) biotechnology company developing novel treatments for chronic and life-threatening conditions based on a transformational gene silencing technology, DNA-directed RNA interference ( ddRNAi). Benitec holds the predominant patent position in the use of ddRNAi for human therapeutic and research applications. The key asset is an exclusive, irrevocable and world-wide license to CSIRO's patent estate covering methods for silencing genes by generating double stranded RNA inside a cell from a DNA construct. Benitec is collaborating with organizations globally to utilize its patent estate to develop novel therapeutics for chronic life threatening diseases and disorders, particularly in cancer and infectious disease . Benitec 's current projects are directed to using gene silencing to overcome drug resistance in lung cancer , to provide a novel solution to intractable cancer-associated pain , and to develop a cure for chronic hepatitis B infection.