Benitec Limited (ASX:BLT) Appoints Dr John Chiplin As Director

Melbourne, Feb 1, 2010 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Benitec Limited (ASX:BLT) (PINK:BNIKF) are delighted to announce the appointment of Dr John Chiplin to the Board.

"We are delighted that John has agreed to join us at this exciting time for Benitec Ltd. We have recently restructured our relationship with CSIRO and made good progress on the intellectual property prosecution front. John's skills will complement the other Board members as we explore further growth opportunities for Benitec" said Sue MacLeman, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Benitec Ltd.

"The transformation of Benitec over the last several years, by current management, has been nothing short of remarkable. I am truly excited about contributing to the next phase of the Company's growth in one of the most significant areas of drug development today" said Dr John Chiplin.

John Chiplin PhD has broad-based experience in the life sciences and technology industries, both from an operational and investment perspective. His most recent accomplishment was the corporate reengineering of Arana Therapeutics, a world leading Antibody developer, which resulted in the acquisition of the company by Cephalon for a significant premium to market (July 2009). Immediately prior to running Arana, Dr Chiplin was head of the $300M ITI Life Sciences investment fund in the UK. His own investment vehicle, Newstar Ventures Ltd, has funded more than a dozen early stage companies in the past ten years. Dr Chiplin's Pharmacy and Doctoral degrees are from the University of Nottingham, UK. Dr Chiplin is based in San Diego USA.

"John's substantial life sciences experience and also his capital markets and merger and acquisition deal experience will be valuable to the Board moving forward. We need to complete a capital raising in the near term and John's contacts will be extremely useful during this process" said Peter Francis, Chairman, Benitec Limited.

The appointment is effective from 1 February 2010.

Contact

Sue MacLeman Chief Executive Officer Tel: +61-437-211-200