Milestone strategic agreement to commercialise Australian biotech innovation

Benitec Limited, CSIRO and the Queensland Department of Primary Industries, have announced a strategic agreement that will accelerate Australia's lead in the global commercialisation of DNA Directed RNA interference, a breakthrough gene silencing technology.

Called ddRNAi, this technology is able to be utilised in most bio-research institutes, biotech and pharmaceutical companies worldwide. This field of research is rapidly expanding, potentially generating market opportunities worth billions of dollars.

Invented in Australia, ddRNAi is the most advanced technology for inducing RNA interference (RNAi), a natural cellular mechanism that silences or selectively negates the effect of targeted genes within any cell of any multi-cellular organism.

Applications for this technology may include the treatment of human disease such as cancer, auto-immune disorders and viral infections by shutting down or suppressing genes that cause these diseases. Equally important applications exist in the fields of plant improvement and animal healthcare.

This agreement fully resolves the dispute between Benitec, CSIRO and Queensland DPI. All parties retain research rights in their fields of interest. John McKinley, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Benitec said "This deal provides clear and certain commercialisation pathways for this technology."

Benitec will focus on commercialising ddRNAi for 'human applications' including research models used in functional genomics. CSIRO will focus on commercialising 'non-human applications', including plants, animals and insects. Queensland DPI will continue its ddRNAi research and will benefit from access to both Benitec and CSIRO's global commercialisation pathways.

Item provided courtesy of CSIRO