Senomyx Announces Recent Progress in Sweet Enhancer and Bitter Blocker Programs

The Company’s lead sucrose enhancer, S6973, enables the reduction of up to 50% of the sucrose present in product prototypes while maintaining the sweet taste of natural sugar.

17 Mar 2010 --- Senomyx, Inc., a leading company focused on using proprietary technologies to discover and develop novel flavor ingredients for the food, beverage, and ingredient supply industries, will present a corporate overview that includes important new progress in the Company’s Sweet Enhancer and Bitter Blocker Programs at the ROTH 22nd Annual OC Growth Stock Conference.

Kent Snyder, the Company’s Chief Executive Officer, will discuss the identification of the first Senomyx flavor ingredients that demonstrate a statistically significant amplification of the sweet taste of fructose. This “taste proof-of-concept” is a key achievement for Senomyx because fructose is a major component of high fructose corn syrup, a sweetener used widely in beverages as well as other large product categories. Senomyx intends to optimize the new fructose enhancers to increase their enhancement properties, and to conduct further evaluations in taste tests.

Mr. Snyder will also comment on progress made with Senomyx’s enhancers for sucrose (the most commonly used sweetener in the world). The Company’s lead sucrose enhancer, S6973, enables the reduction of up to 50% of the sucrose present in product prototypes while maintaining the sweet taste of natural sugar. S6973 received Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) status in October 2009. The GRAS determination allows S6973 to be incorporated into specified products in the U.S. and in numerous other countries.

Senomyx was recently notified that the GRAS status for S6973 has been extended to instant coffee and tea, and imitation dairy products. Previous GRAS product categories for S6973 include baked goods, cereals, gum, condiments and relishes, confectioneries and frostings, frozen dairy offerings, fruit ices, gelatins and puddings, hard and soft candy, jams and jellies, milk products, and sauces.

Additional advances with the Sweet Enhancer Program include the recent identification of a new family of sucrose enhancers that allow for up to 40% reduction of sugar in preliminary taste tests. These alternative sucrose enhancers have distinct physical properties that may be advantageous for a broad range of beverages and other product applications that have specific requirements due to special packaging and storage conditions.

In regard to the Company’s Bitter Blocker Program, Senomyx previously announced that it expected to conclude development activities with S6821 by year-end, in preparation to pursue regulatory filings in the U.S. and elsewhere during 2011. The Company has made considerable progress in this program since the beginning of the year, and Senomyx now projects that it will be in position to submit regulatory applications for S6821 during the fourth quarter of 2010. In addition, S0812, another promising bitter blocker, has met the Company’s requirements for advancement into the development phase. Senomyx believes development activities with S0812 will conclude by year-end and regulatory filings will be made in early 2011. Taste tests have demonstrated that S6821 and S0812, alone or in combination, can provide statistically significant reductions in the bitterness of a variety of product prototypes and food ingredients including tea, cocoa, menthol, various proteins, and the sweeteners Rebaudioside-A (a derivative of the stevia plant), Acesulfame potassium (Ace-K), and saccharine.

To access Senomyx’s live presentation at the ROTH Conference or a subsequent archived recording, please log onto Senomyx’s website at http://www.senomyx.com and click on the “Investor Relations” tab. The archived webcast will be available for 30 days following the presentation. Please connect to Senomyx’s website prior to the start of the webcast to ensure adequate time to download any software that may be necessary.