Benitec completes Tacere acquisition

Benitec Biopharma (ASX:BLT) has completed the acquisition of US-based RNA interference therapeutics discovery company Tacere Therapeutics.

The acquisition, first announced earlier this month, involved the issue of around $1.2 million in new Benitec shares and an agreement to split future potential licensing revenue with Tacere's owners.

Tacere Therapeutics has a phase I/IIa ready hepatitis C treatment candidate TT-034, developed using Benitec's gene silencing technology ddRNAi.

Benitec holds an exclusive license to the CSIRO-developed ddRNAi (DNA-directed RNA interference) platform.

Benitec CEO Dr Peter French said the company aims to commence a phase I/IIa clinical trial for TT-034 in mid-2013.

“We believe that Benitec Biopharma’s gene-silencing ddRNAi platform technology has the potential to be the basis of the next wave of therapeutic products globally for diseases and conditions that are currently untreatable or poorly managed,” he said.

“Our strategy is to advance our pipeline programs towards and into the clinic, and the Tacere HCV program represents the first of those programs.”

TT-034 has been under development since 2006. Tacere signed a collaboration and licensing agreement with Pfizer covering the candidate in 2008. But in 2011 Pfizer closed the UK facility leading the project, and the rights to the program passed back to Tacere this year.

The size of Tacere shareholders' share of revenue from any future sales of TT-034 will vary between 2.5% and 35%, contingent on the stage of the product's commercial development at the time a new licensing deal is reached.

Benitec Biopharma (ASX:BLT) shares were trading unchanged at $0.015 as of 2pm on Tuesday.