Benitec, Ozgene team up to build a better rat model

A potentially lucrative bid to provide the drug industry with improved testing capabilities on animal models has been launched by two Australian biotechs.

Gene silencing company Benitec and transgenic lab animal supplier Ozgene are combining to develop what they say will be the first rats capable of showing a shutdown of specifically targeted genes.

They hope their six to nine-month project will furnish an entirely new class of animals where targeted genes can be shut down in a precise and controlled manner.

That would offer important benefits in the development of new drugs by the pharmaceutical industry for whom rats are a recognised testing model.

Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies have a high demand for gene silenced animal models in their drug discovery and development programs. A successful project could yield significant licensing revenues for the two companies.

If the Benitec-Ozgene venture is successful, it would give the drug industry a much earlier testing capability on rats, the best animal model.

The larger size of rats make them easier to work with and rats also provide better models than mice when it comes to neurological symptoms.

Working with rats makes tests possible that are not possible or meaningful with mice, said Ozgene CEO Dr Frank Koentgen: "It gives you a better picture of the physiological involvement of the gene in question than a mouse would do."

The effect will be heightened efficiency in identifying new drug failures at an early stage and also providing a shortened time to market for successfully tested new drugs.

Developing transgenic animals with newly silenced genes will provide biomedical researchers with powerful models of disease and gene function from which they can accelerate discovery of drugs and treatments for cancers and other diseases," said Prof Ken Reed, Benitec's director of research and technology.

The two companies are well-positioned to combine their technology platforms and establish a dominant world position in the field of animal transgenics, he claimed.

Brisbane-based Benitec and Perth-based Ozgene have already collaborated on gene silencing in live mice. They announced last month they had achieved their goal by delivering gene constructs that induce gene silencing into the cell through a natural mechanism known as RNA interference (RNAi).

Benitec developed the DNA-based methodology and the gene constructs that trigger RNAi while Ozgene delivered the gene constructs into embryos and carried out the breeding and analysis of the resultant mice.