Benitec Biopharma Ltd (BNTC)

[Blane]

Hi, Power.

What would be injected are viral vectors, not viral modified cells. This, the idea is to "infect" a rental cell, and then the cells mutation would be replaced with a non-condition inducing gene. They do not cause repair in the cellular reproductive sense, so the idea is to detect Macular Degeneration before it becomes vision threatening.

Glaucoma is a disease of high ocular pressure that ultimately effects intraocular nervous tissue. Typically, nervous tissue/cells, once destroyed, are extremely difficult to repair. This, any thought towards what you are suggesting would likely be an issue of cellular reproduction, which this treatment does not address.

I haven't seen or heard the latest presentation in regards to Zika, so I can't answer or respond to that one.

As someone who has worked in the ophthalmology field for 20 years, I can tell you that corneal burns are pretty detrimental. Corneal tissue is very difficult to repair due to the lower amount of blood vessel infiltration (otherwise there would be too much visual interference through the clear corneal tissue). But I'm pretty sure Benitec's aim is more geared towards disease conditions, and not so much trauma, if that makes sense. Although it will be interesting to see where they go with this in the future. Hope that helps. And again, I'm sure some of my info is limited, and is merely based on my personal understanding of the mechanism of action and disease targets.