Benitec Biopharma Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:BNTC) was basically flat throughout late January, but this week has really started to run, on a couple of updates relating to the company's pipeline. There looks to be plenty of run room left, even with the recent gains taken into consideration, and here's what we're watching for to support this bias.For those new to the company, Benitec is a development stage biotechnology company working to bring treatments to market within a couple of broad areas in healthcare. It’s two lead sector targets are ocular conditions (diseases that affect the eye and – by proxy – sight) and oncology.The former of these two targets is the primary driver behind the recent action, and will be the focus of this discussion.So, the company is developing a drug called BB-201, and this is its lead development asset. It's targeting a condition called wet age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD). This condition is a very common condition, and is especially prevalent in the elderly. It's the leading cause of blindness in the US (as well as in the majority of other developed nations) and while there are some treatments on the market right now, they all have their drawbacks.Benitec is trying to overcome one of these major drawback – administration complexity. Current wet AMD treatments (at least, that is, the effective ones) require what's called subretinal injection. It’s a complex surgical procedure, requires that patients stay in hospital overnight, and is both expensive and risky. Benitec's therapy has a very similar mechanism of action to current SOC (it works to help regenerate the lost macular cells at the back of the eye) but, and as per the latest announcement, the it is targeting an administration method of what's called intravitreal injection – in other words, a shot of medicine injected directly into the eye. Normally, this isn’t possible, as the active ingredient of the drug doesn’t get to the retina, where it is required. As the per the latest announcement, however, Benitec has teamed up with a company called 4D Molecular Therapeutics to create a version of the drug that is delivered by way of a viral vector. The best way to think of a viral vector is a sort of delivery packaging. The company puts the active ingredient into the viral vector, and then the whole package is injected in to the eye. Once in there, the virus carries the drug to the retina, and releases it, where it gets to work.This method is as yet unavailable, and will make for a procedure that is both cheaper and less risky, as well as likely quicker both procedurally and in terms of time to efficacy.As yet, there's not too much information available as to exactly how the system will work, and what's involved. With that said, the company just announced that it was set to present at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO)-Asia meeting, which will be held in Brisbane on February 5 through February 8. The presentation will address the technology in question, and we are likely going to get some degree of insight into the development timeline for the asset. In other words, a road map for when the trials will kick off, and when we can expect to get some clarity into efficacy.The bottom line here is that this treatment, if it can reach commercialization, can become the standard of care in a very large space by way of its strategic cost and risk advantage over currently available alternatives. There is a ways to go before said commercialization stage is reached, and with this comes the standard capital risks associated with early stage biotech allocations, but we expect a near term run after the above discussed presentation, and this mitigates some of the risk.We will be updating our subscribers as soon as we know more. For the latest updates on BNTC, sign up below!Disclosure: We have no position in BNTC and have not been compensated for this article.
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