Benitec acquires US RNAi company
Australian company Benitec, which focuses on rapid development of Hepatitis C therapeutics, has acquired California-based RNAi therapeutics company Avocel and established Benitec Inc., a wholly owned US subsidiary.
Australian company Benitec, which focuses on rapid development of Hepatitis C therapeutics, has acquired California-based RNAi therapeutics company Avocel and established Benitec Inc., a wholly owned US subsidiary.
Through the acquisition, Benitec gains its first in-house advanced therapeutic development programme using DNA-directed RNAi (ddRNAi) to target the Hepatitis C virus (HCV). Benitec expects a ddRNAi- based therapeutic for HCV will enter the clinic in 2005. The merger will also provide the US base for Benitec Inc., with laboratory and administration facilities in Silicon Valley.
The Benitec HCV program will build on work already underway at Avocel using ddRNAi as a gene therapy to suppress genes related to disease progression. This approach exploits the ability of ddRNAi to target multiple gene products simultaneously, thereby giving the clinician the ability to tackle HCV from many angles with the same drug.
Avocel's co-founder Professor Mark Kay, Director of the Human Gene Therapy Program at Stanford University School of Medicine and Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Genetics, will join Benitec's scientific advisory board as deputy chairman and will serve as strategic consultant to the company's HCV and related viral programmes. Sara Cunningham, a co-founder and vp of intellectual property and business development of Avocel and formerly international and strategic marketing manager at BD Biosciences Clontech, joins as Benitec Inc.'s chief operating officer. The two companies are merging their scientific advisory boards under chairman John Rossi and deputy chairman, Mark Kay.
'Through the acquisition of Avocel, we gain a well-defined and advanced therapeutic development programme, an expanded intellectual property portfolio, senior operational and business management and an established presence in the US,' said John McKinley, chairman and ceo of the Benitec group. 'Our major long-term strategy is to develop new therapeutics based on our proprietary RNAi technology. The acquisition of Avocel is a significant milestone in achieving this goal.'