Senomyx Announces Issuance of Five New U.S. Patents

14/01/08 Senomyx, Inc., a leading company using proprietary taste receptor technologies to discover and develop novel flavor ingredients for the food, beverage, and ingredient supply industries, announced the issuance by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office of five new patents relating to the human umami and sweet taste receptors. These patents are U.S. Patent No. 7,309,577, issued on December 18, 2007, entitled, "Binding assays that use the T1R1/T1R3 (umami) taste receptor to identify compounds that elicit or modulate umami taste"; U.S. Patent No. 7,301,009, issued on November 27, 2007,  entitled, "Isolated umami (T1R1/T1R3) taste receptors that respond to umami taste stimuli"; U.S. Patent No. 7,297,543, issued on November 20, 2007, entitled, "Cell lines that stably or transiently express a functional sweet (T1R2/T1R3) taste receptor"; U.S. Patent No. 7,297,772, also issued on November 20, 2007, entitled, "Isolated sweet (T1R2/T1R3) taste receptors that respond to sweet taste stimuli"; and U.S. Patent No. 7,294,474, issued on November 13, 2007, entitled, "Functional assays for identifying compounds that modulate T1R2/T1R3 (sweet) taste."

"The new patents add to Senomyx's already extensive taste receptor patent franchise and expand upon our earlier patents relating to the human sweet and umami (savory) taste receptors," said Mark Zoller, Ph.D., Senomyx's Chief Scientific Officer and Executive Vice President of Discovery and Development.

"Each individual has only one type of sweet taste receptor and one type of umami receptor," Zoller explained.  "Senomyx's patents include composition claims covering these receptors, as well as claims directed to T1R1, T1R2 and T1R3 nucleic acid sequences, which encode the receptors.  The new patents strengthen our proprietary position regarding the use of these receptors in screening assays designed to identify new flavor ingredients that induce or modulate sweet and savory tastes."

Senomyx is now the owner or exclusive licensee of 113 issued patents and 371 pending patent applications in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere.  "The technologies covered in Company's patent portfolio enable us to discover new flavor ingredients using methodologies that are more efficient than traditional flavor discovery approaches," Zoller noted. 

"For example, Senomyx used the patented umami receptor assay to identify novel savory ingredients that have been incorporated into food products that are now being marketed by Nestle.  We used a similar assay based on the sweet receptor to discover S2383, a promising enhancer of the artificial sweetener sucralose, and S5742, an enhancer of the natural sweetener sucrose, which is table sugar."

Development activities intended to support regulatory filings are underway for S2383, which allows for the reduction of sucralose by up to 75% in simple product prototypes while maintaining the desired sweet taste. S5742, which enabled a sucrose reduction of approximately 40% while exhibiting excellent taste and physical characteristics, is being optimized in an effort to increase its potency.

"The discovery of S2383 and S5742 and the successful discovery, development, and commercialization of our savory flavor enhancers validate Senomyx's patented technologies," stated Kent Snyder, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company.  "All of the inventions in the new patents were made in-house by Senomyx's scientists, and we are proud of their accomplishments.

"The novel flavor ingredients created by Senomyx are intended to provide a competitive advantage for our partners," Snyder noted.  "Senomyx now has product discovery and development collaborations with seven of the world's foremost food, beverage, and ingredient supply companies: Ajinomoto, Cadbury Schweppes, Campbell Soup Company, The Coca-Cola Company, Firmenich, Nestle, and Solae."