Melbourne, Nov 6, 2008 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Benitec Limited (ASX:BLT)(PINK:BNIKF) today announced that a key patent focused on producing Double-Stranded Nucleic Acid constructs for therapeutic and related applications of RNA interference (RNAi) had been granted in Singapore.

"This is an excellent example of a patent that offers broad coverage and leverage in the field of RNAi therapeutics. We have already licensed this patent family for use in pre-clinical and clinical development of a Hepatitis C therapeutic construct and will look to further licensing opportunities" said Sue MacLeman, Chief Executive Officer of Benitec.

"We are delighted that this Benitec patent has been granted. Through our own Benitec patent portfolio and also licensed technology from our partners, we have access to many pending and issued patent claims in the RNAi space. This technology's addition further broadens our RNAi intellectual property portfolio. This is a fully owned Benitec patent that comes from work undertaken by the Benitec team" she added.

The granted claims of the patent include an invention directed towards producing constructs for RNAi techniques. The invention provides a ribonucleic acid (RNA) for use as interfering RNA in gene silencing techniques to silence a target gene.
The Singapore patent number is 117710. This patent was filed on 3 June 2004 and has an expiry of 3 June 2024.

Inventors include Dr Michael Graham, Dr Ken Reed, Dr Robert Rice, Dr Peter Roelvink, Dr Bruce Harrison, Dr David Suhy and Dr Alexander Kolykhalov.

The patent is also pending in a number of other jurisdictions and the Company expects further grants in the coming months.

Contact

BENITEC LTD
Sue MacLeman
Chief Executive Officer
TEL: +61-437-211-200


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