13 Nov 2013 Senomyx-PepsiCo sweet taste modifier will be commercialised in 2014
Senomyx first told the market about S617 in August 2012, and announced it had “agreed to work with PepsiCo to advance this new flavour ingredient into the preliminary development phase, which includes the initial safety studies and other activities necessary to support regulatory filings in the US and elsewhere”.
Owing to confidentiality agreements, it cannot provide details of what PepsiCo is working on, but has said S617 can enable significant reductions of both high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and sucrose in a variety of applications, including carbonated soft drinks.
As for regulatory hurdles, Senomyx is “on-track with development activities to support GRAS regulatory filings for S617 in the first quarter of 2014”, said CEO Kent Snyder, but would not provide further details.
“Senomyx’s growth for 2014 and 2015 will be primarily driven by our collaboration with PepsiCo and the direct sales initiatives [Senomyx now plans to sell some flavor ingredients directly to flavor companies rather than relying solely on licensing deals].”
Snyder added: “We expect S617 will be used across a wide range of food and beverages including the important carbonated soft drink market in North America.
“The utility of S617 with both fructose and sucrose could allow manufacturer that use these sweeteners to focus their flavor system efforts on a single sweet taste modifier therefore potentially increasing efficiency and cost effectiveness.”
Building on work by scientists who have successfully cloned human taste receptors for sweet, bitter and umami tastes, Senomyx uses high-throughput biological screening techniques to evaluate millions of molecules to identify which substances bind to specific taste receptors.
So far it has programs for sweet, savory, salt reduction, cooling and bitter-blocking, and has struck deals with big names in the industry from PepsiCo and Firmenich to Ajinomoto.