Executives
Gwen Rosenberg - VP, IR and Corporate Communications
Kent Snyder - President, CEO and Chairman
John Poyhonen - SVP, CFO and Business Officer
Mark Zoller - EVP of Discovery and Development, and Chief Scientific Officer
Don Karanewsky - SVP, Discovery
Sharon Wicker - SVP of Commercialization and Chief Strategy Officer
Tony Rogers - VP, Finance and Treasury
Analysts
Pamela Bassett - Cantor Fitzgerald
Dalton Chandler - Needham & Company
Senomyx, Inc. (SNMX) Q4 2008 Earnings Call February 12, 2009 10:00 AM ET
Good morning. We will now begin the Senomyx fourth quarter 2008 conference call. At this time, I'd like to inform you that this conference call is being recorded and that all participants are in a listen-only mode. At the request of the company, we will open the conference up for questions and answers after the presentation. (Operator instructions) I'd now like to turn the call over to Gwen Rosenberg, Senomyx's Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications.
Gwen Rosenberg
Good morning and welcome to the Senomyx fourth quarter and year-end 2008 earnings and corporate update conference call. Participating in this call from Senomyx will be Kent Snyder, President and CEO; John Poyhonen, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial and Business Officer; Mark Zoller, Executive Vice President, Discovery and Development and Chief Scientific Officer; Don Karanewsky, Senior Vice President, Discovery; Sharon Wicker, Senior Vice President, Commercial Development and Chief Strategy Officer; and Tony Rogers, Vice President, Finance and Treasury.
Before we begin, please note that during the course of this call we may make projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or financial performance of the company that involve risks and uncertainties. The company's actual results may differ materially from the projections described in the press release and this conference call. Factors that might cause such a difference include, but are not limited to, those discussed in our quarterly and annual reports filed with the SEC. Copies of these documents are available upon request from Investor Relations at Senomyx or may be accessed via our website at www.senomyx.com.
I'd now like to turn the discussion over to Kent Snyder, President and CEO of Senomyx.
Kent Snyder
Thank you, Gwen. Good morning to everyone on the call, and thank you for joining the Senomyx management team for our conference call and webcast. During this call, we will provide you with a general business and financial update for the 2008 fourth quarter and full-year. This will be followed by a question-and-answer session.
2008 was an important year for Senomyx, with both scientific and business accomplishments that culminated in the receipt of a GRAS or Generally Recognized As Safe designation for our sucralose enhancer, S2383, as well as a new collaboration with Firmenich for the commercialization of S2383 in the US and elsewhere.
As we previously discussed, sucralose is a high-intensity sweetener used in a wide variety of beverages and foods such as confectionaries, baked goods, desserts, and dairy products, as well as over-the-counter healthcare products and dietary supplements.
In taste tests, S2383 allowed up to a 75% reduction in the amount of sucralose in simple product prototypes, while maintaining the desired sweet taste. By enabling the reduction of sucralose, S2383 may allow manufacturers to decrease their costs of goods and potentially improve the taste characteristics of certain products.
We believe Firmenich, the world's largest privately-owned flavor and fragrance company has the ability to drive worldwide market acceptance and to maximize the long-term revenue potential for S2383.
We are pleased that Firmenich has already initiated pre-commercialization activities, which include product development work, and production scale up. They have also begun demonstrating S2383 to potential customers in meetings with leading food and beverage companies. Our goal with Firmenich is to begin commercialization of S2383 during the fourth quarter of 2009.
S2383 is the first flavor ingredient resulting from the company’s Sweet Enhancer Program to receive GRAS designation, which was a milestone that validates Senomyx discovery, development and regulatory expertise.
The proprietary methodology used to identify S2383 also led to the discovery of S6973, our highly effective enhancer of sucrose.
Taste tests demonstrated that S6973 enables up to a 50% reduction of sugar and food and beverage product prototypes, allowing a significant decrease in calories, while maintaining the full sweet tastes with no off-tastes. This performance has seen a numerous types of products including beverages, yoghurt, cereal, cookie, condiments and hard candy prototypes.
We are continuing regulatory focused development activities for S6973. Scale up of food-grade material has been completed and definitive safety studies designed to support regulatory filings in the U.S. and elsewhere are underway.
Based upon successful completion of these activities, we believe that S6973 can receive a GRAS determination by the end of the first quarter of 2010, which will make it eligible for commercialization. It will take additional time for current and potential new partners to compete their pre-commercialization activity prior to market launch of products containing S6973.
As noted previously, we believe that S6973 can be a valuable means to help our current and potential future partners address the consumer need for lower calorie products that maintain the taste of natural sugar.
We are also continuing to work on additional sucrose enhancers that may have novel properties. We will keep you apprised of significant developments related to our activities as we make progress.
Senomyx's scientists are now using our proprietary technology to identify enhancers of fructose, a key component of high fructose corn syrup, a sweetener used in numerous food and beverage products.
Initial work led to a discovery of fructose enhancers that were moderately active in the screening assay and we've been encouraged by the more prominent activity demonstrated by recently identified samples. These samples are active in the screening assay, and are being scaled up and optimized for taste tests.
According to the consulting group, LMC International, worldwide demand for high fructose corn syrup for 2008 was approximately 12.9 million metric tons at a cost of approximately $6.9 billion.
A fructose enhancer facilitates a reduction in the quantity of high fructose corn syrup used in food, beverage and ingredient products, and therefore provides a significant new opportunity for Senomyx.
In addition to the progress made in our Sweet Enhancer Program, we are excited to start 2009 with significant new advances in our Bitter Blocker Program. The primary goals of this program, which has two collaborators, are to reduce or block bitter taste and to improve the overall taste characteristics of foods, beverages, and ingredients.
As announced this week, Senomyx has identified S0812 and other promising bitter blockers that met the criteria for reducing the bitterness of several variations of one collaborator's product, as well as additional product prototypes.
After discussion with the collaborator, we initiated development activities to support regulatory filings for these bitter blockers in the U.S. and elsewhere. The development phase includes scale-up manufacturing and safety studies.
We also had significant progress in collaboration with Solae, which involves the discovery and development of new bitter blockers that modulate and control bitterness in certain soy-based products.
During the third quarter, Senomyx reached critical milestones, when we demonstrated that it is possible to block receptors for the bitter taste associated with hydrolyzed soy protein.
More recently, we had a considerable advance with the identification of new bitter blockers that provided a taste proof-of-concept with a representative soy sample from Solae. These bitter blockers are undergoing optimization for further taste evaluation.
We believe that the scientific breakthroughs made in the Bitter Blocker Program may result in a significant long-term value for Senomyx. The ability to block bitter taste is complex, because we each have 25 different bitter taste receptors.
Senomyx's analysis predicted that 22 of those receptors are the primary means by which individuals sense bitter taste sense. Using our receptor-based assays and optimization processes, we have identified blockers for 18 different bitter receptors and screening is ongoing to find blockers for the remaining receptors.
This approach is enabling Senomyx to create a novel toolbox of bitter blockers that have the potential to be used to reduce the bitter taste of a wide variety of food, beverage, OTC health care and pharmaceutical products.
Turning to our Savory Enhancer Program, the primary applications of Senomyx's savory flavor ingredients are to reduce or replace monosodium glutamate, commonly known as MSG and to enhance the savory taste of foods by combining our savory flavors with other ingredients to create unique new flavors.
As reported previously, Nestle began marketing a small number of new bouillon and culinary aid food products that contain Senomyx's savory flavor ingredients in the Pacific Rim and Latin America in mid-2007.
During 2008, the number of products being marketed increased and the commercialization activities were expanded in these regions. To date, all of the products launched by Nestle are new products being marketed under the Maggi label.
In addition to the marketing activities, Nestle has been conducting product development and consumer testing with both new and reformulated established products in larger countries that are high-volume users of MSG. Senomyx anticipates that Nestle will initiate commercialization of established products containing the savory flavor ingredients during 2009.
The Pacific Rim and Latin America were initially selected by Nestle as the initial region for commercialization, because those countries are large consumers of MSG and our savory ingredients are permitted for use, based on their GRAS status and positive JECFA review.
We are still awaiting regulatory approval of our savory flavor ingredients in Europe. As you may recall, the delay in Europe is due to changes in the regulation of flavors and is not specific to Senomyx. We are in a queue with many other companies that are seeking approval of new flavor ingredients.
A positive JECFA review is especially important to Senomyx, because approximately two-thirds of the sales of existing products, or which Nestle holds rights to our savory flavor ingredients, are in the European Union.
The delay in the review process had therefore impacted the timing of Nestle's commercialization plans and Senomyx's potential royalty revenues. We are hopeful that JECFA review of our savory flavor ingredients will be forthcoming, but we have not been given a perspective date for their review.
Our second collaborator for Savory Enhancer Program, Ajinomoto, continues to move forward with their pre-commercialization activities. They have completed product development work related to inclusion of Senomyx savory ingredients in a number of Ajinomoto products.
Additional work is proceeding according to Ajinomoto's standard internal guidelines for product evaluation and consumer testing, as well as preparations for commercial scale manufacturing. Due to competitive considerations and confidentiality obligations, we are unable to provide specifics regarding Ajinomoto’s market launch plan.
Moving to our Salt Enhancer Program, we are excited to have begun taste tests to evaluate potential new enhancers of salty taste. As a reminder, the goal of the Salt Enhancer Program is to identify flavor ingredients that allow a significant reduction of sodium in foods and beverages, yet maintain the salty taste desirable to consumers.
During 2008, Senomyx reported a major scientific finding with the discovery of SNMX-29, the protein the company believes is the primary receptor responsible for human salt taste. Using new proprietary screening assays based on SNMX-29, we have identified well over 100 enhancers of both sodium chloride, which is table salt, and potassium chloride that are active in the assays.
As discussed previously, potassium chloride is often used to help maintain a salty taste and reduce sodium products, but its use is limited due to an undesirable off-taste. An enhancer that facilitates reduction of potassium chloride could enable further decreases in sodium content without unwanted taste effects.
The enhancers that are active in the assays to date are from 12 diverse sample classes. We therefore believe they represent numerous prospects for identifying one or more enhancers that have a taste effect. Preliminary taste tests have been initiated, and selected enhancers are being optimized to increase their solubility, potency, and desired taste characteristics.
We believe that Senomyx’s discovery of these enhancers and the initiation of taste tests are important achievements for the company. As documented in a new Harvard-led study, published in the January 12 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, there is a correlation between high sodium intake and increased risk of cardiovascular disease.
The ability to reduce salt content in food and beverages without affecting taste could be significant for manufactures who want to offer low sodium products to their customers.
We are also making strides with our Cool Flavor Program. The goal of this program is to identify novel cooling flavors that do not have the limitations of currently available agents. Senomyx has initiated taste tests of samples that were active in our proprietary high-throughput screening assay designed to identify potential new cooling agents.
In a recent advance, preliminary results indicated that a newly identified sample provided a cooling taste effect. This and other samples will be investigated further.
Lastly, regarding our Discovery and Development efforts, the goals of our High Potency Sweetener Program are to identify novel low or non-caloric natural high potency sweeteners to improve upon the taste and physical properties of currently marketed high potency sweeteners.
As discussed previously, we have identified multiple natural samples extracts that were active in the sweet receptor screening assay. We have decided to temporarily shift resources away from the High Potency Sweetener Program in order to focus on the near-term projects.
These include the numerous activities underway for other flavor programs and in support of regulatory filings for Sucrose Enhancer and the Bitter Blockers. However, we are continuing to expand Senomyx's library of natural product sample and, as time and resource allows, samples that were active in the screening assay are being characterized and purified in preparation for future evaluation and taste tests. We will keep you apprised of significant progress in this program.
In addition to the flavor program activities, during the past year, Senomyx increased the number of granted patents in our intellectual property portfolio of proprietary taste receptor technologies. As of December 31, 2008, Senomyx is the owner or exclusive licensee of 152 issued patents and 392 pending patent applications in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere.
In management news, Mark Zoller, Senomyx's Chief Scientific Officer and Executive Vice President of Discovery and Development, will be taking a medical leave and is expected to return in June.
Although Mark, who is on the call with us this morning, will not be onsite, Senomyx anticipates that he will continue to provide significant input into scientific projects, collaborations, the Scientific Advisory Board, and major decisions relating to the general function and management of the company.
During Mark's leave, day-to-day Discovery and Development responsibilities will be assumed by Donald S. Karanewsky, Ph.D., our Senior Vice President of Discovery. Don, who joined Senomyx in June 2007, has had a distinguished career that includes leading successful discovery efforts at both large pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology research organizations.
He is an inventor of more than 70 U.S. patents. and has authored over 50 scientific publications. Don received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard University; he was granted a B.S. in Chemistry, Magna Cum Laude, from Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey.
We are grateful for Mark's ongoing contributions and we look forward to his return to full activities. Senomyx is extremely fortunate to have someone of Don's competence to direct our daily scientific efforts.
Under Don's leadership, we have had significant advances in the Discovery department, including the identification of S6973, our sucrose enhancer in development, and the new bitter blockers that are now moving into the development phase. We are confident that, during Mark's leave, we have the experience and expertise to continue to advance our Discovery and Development programs.
In other management news, Susan R. Firestone has been promoted to Vice President, Human Resources. Susie is an accomplished Human Resource executive, with more than 12 years of diverse experience in consulting, start-up, and Fortune 500 companies.
She has expertise in driving organizational initiatives and implementing targeted employee programs. She received an M.S. in Chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles and a B.S. Chemistry, Magna Cum Laude, from Texas Christian University.
Susie has made significant contributions to the company since joining Senomyx in April 2007, and we are pleased to have her join the management team.
Looking to this coming year, we continue to be optimistic about potential value drivers that may occur within the next six to 12 months. This includes completing key development activities for our 6973 sucrose enhancer and our bitter blockers, as well as the achievement of taste proof-of-concept for our salt enhancer and our fructose enhancer. We also expect to have continued progress with the cooling agent program.
On the commercialization front, we are looking forward to additional launches of both new and reformulated products containing Senomyx savory flavor ingredients and to Firmenich's market launch of S2383, our sucralose enhancer.
We also remained focused on pursuing new collaboration agreements; leading food, beverage and ingredient companies continue to express a high degree of interest in Senomyx’s flavor ingredients. We believe they are motivated by the potential of our ingredients to address ongoing needs for products with reduced sugar, salt and bitterness that maintain the desired taste.
In addition, our business model of providing our partners with exclusive access to these new flavor ingredients gives them a competitive advantage in the marketplace, which appears to be an important consideration for these companies.
In summary, Senomyx is pleased to be continuing the significant steps forward made in our flavor programs during 2008, and to be entering 2009 with seven of the world's leading food, beverage, and ingredient supply companies as our development and commercialization partners.
Senomyx had important scientific and business accomplishments this past year and we are confident in our prospects to make further progress over the coming months.
This completes my updates, and I will now ask Tony Rogers, our Vice President, Finance and Treasury to provide a financial overview of Senomyx. This is usually handled by John Poyhonen, our CFO, but John recently had a dental procedure, so Tony will be speaking for him. John is present and will answer questions regarding our financial and business related activities at the conclusion of Tony’s remarks. Tony?
Tony Rogers
Okay. Revenues for the fourth quarter were $3.5 million compared to $6.4 million for the same period in 2007, a decrease of 45%. Revenues were $17.2 million for the full-year 2008, compared to $18.2 million for 2007, a decrease of 6%.
The decrease in revenue for both the fourth quarter and full-year is primarily due to higher non-recurring upfront payment revenue in 2007 compared to 2008.
Specifically, under our collaboration with Ajinomoto, in 2007, the company received an $8 million upfront payment, the majority of which was recognized as revenue in the second half of 2007.
Included in revenues for the full-year 2008 were $347,000 in commercial revenues, compared to $23,000 for 2007. Commercial revenues are comprised of amounts associated with commercialization of products containing Senomyx's flavor ingredients and are generally recognized one quarter in arrears.
Research and development expenses, which include non-cash stock-based compensation expense were $7.9 million for the fourth quarter in 2008, compared to $8.4 million for the same period in 2007, a decrease of 6%.
The decrease was primarily due to lower costs related to the purchase of compounds used in screening activities, partially offset by an increase in patent and personnel-related expenses.
R&D expenses for the year ended December 31, 2008 were $31.8 million, compared to $29.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2007, an increase of 6%, primarily due to higher costs related to product candidate safety studies.
General and administrative expenses, which include non-cash stock-based comp expense, were $3.7 million for the fourth quarter in 2008, compared to $3.4 million for the same period in 2007. G&A expenses were $13.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2008 and 2007.
The net loss for the fourth quarter 2008 was $8 million, or $0.26 per share, compared to a net loss for the same period in 2007 of $4.6 million, or $0.15 per share. The net loss for the year ended December 31, 2008 was $26.9 million, or $0.88 per share, compared to a net loss for the year ended December 31, 2007 of $21.8 million, or $0.72 per share.
Looking back at 2008, total operating expenses were favorably below our guidance range, as we were able to manage our operations to lower than forecasted expenses. As we have stated in previous quarterly calls, our ability to meet other financial guidance parameters was dependent upon a number of factors, including the timing of scientific progress, and the completion of certain business development activities.
Although we ended the year with a new collaboration for S2383, several promising discussions with potential partners were extended into 2009, which impacted our 2008 financial metrics.
In addition, early in 2008, we saw a significant and lasting decrease in interest rate yields on the U.S. Treasuries and other U.S. Government Agency instruments in which we invest our cash reserves. This reduction in interest rates resulted in approximately $1.5 million less interest income compared to our forecasts.
I'll now provide financial guidance for 2009. With respect to our revenue guidance, we expect approximately $11 million in development revenue under existing collaborations and more than $1 million in commercial revenue under existing collaborations.
The remaining portion of our revenue projection is anticipated to come from milestone achievement revenue under existing collaborations, extensions of existing collaborations, and new collaboration development revenues.
We are encouraged by the interest expressed by several potential new partners and our ongoing discussions. However, we view our ability to establish new collaborations as the most challenging component of our revenue target.
New collaborations are highly dependent on our continued progress on the R&D front, as well as our potential new collaborators' ability and willingness to invest in R&D program in the current economic environment.
Regarding expenses, we are projecting a modest increase in expenses, primarily driven by costs for manufacturing scale-up and safety studies related to potential product candidates advancing into development.
We enter 2009 with more than $40 million in cash, cash equivalents, and investments available-for-sale, and we will continue to carefully manage our cash utilization.
For the full-year 2009, Senomyx expects: Total revenues of $20 million to $24 million; Total expenses of $48 million to $51 million, of which $7 million to $8 million is non-cash, stock-based compensation expense; Net loss of $24 million to $27 million; Basic and diluted net loss of $0.78 to $0.87 per share; and net cash used in operating activities between $16 million and $20 million.
I will now turn the call back over to the operator to open up for questions.
Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Mr. Snyder, our first question comes from Pamela Bassett of Cantor Fitzgerald. Please proceed.
Pamela Bassett - Cantor Fitzgerald
Hi, thanks for taking my call. Can you hear me okay?
Kent Snyder
Hi, Pamela.
Pamela Bassett - Cantor Fitzgerald
Hi. Congratulations on all the progress. I wonder if you can tell us a little bit more about how the launch will take place with Firmenich on the sucralose enhancers. Do you think it will be a system that they are introducing, or the sucralose enhancer on its own? Should we be thinking about revenue towards the end of the year from this or that will come in 2010? Thank you.
Kent Snyder
Pamela, we are limited, due to confidentiality obligations, not to say too much about the plans with Firmenich, but in working with them and I can ask Sharon to comment further. We are pleased with their activities today, both in terms of looking at production scale up and product development work. We are aware that they are out talking to leading food and beverage companies and then speaking with them. It's our anticipation that the launch would occur in the fourth quarter of 2009.
We really can’t say, at this point in time, how they will be rolling out S2383 and what type of system it will be incorporated in. I think that’s something that really Firmenich would have to comment on themselves, but we are confident and we like the progress that we see in terms of them moving 2383 through the initial product development process. John, do you have any further comments on . . .?
John Poyhonen
Yes, I just want to additional comment. Hi, Pamela.
Pamela Bassett - Cantor Fitzgerald
Hi.
John Poyhonen
With respect to when we expect to recognize revenue, as you recall, our royalty revenues recognized one quarter in arrears, so with the anticipated first launch in the fourth quarter of 2009, we wouldn’t expect to recognize any revenue from this program until the first quarter of 2010.
Kent Snyder
Any other further comment?
Sharon Wicker
We are in close communication with Firmenich, and I will just underscore again, as Kent did in description, that we are extremely pleased with the progress that they've made and the urgency that they are demonstrating and are moving through their pre-commercialization activity.
Pamela Bassett - Cantor Fitzgerald
Okay. Great. Thanks very much. Congratulations on all the progress. If I can leave you with one other question about the bitter programming, and there are two, just to be clear, the bitter program with Solae, and then there is a bitter program where you have two other alliances or partners. Might you be adding partners in the bitter area, say from pharma and OTC companies?
Kent Snyder
Pamela, just to clarify, currently we have two collaborations in the Bitter Blocker Program, one of which is Solae. The other is a company that we have not identified due to confidentiality reasons. So it is two companies currently, rather than three.
Certainly, we have every intention of pursing additional collaborations involving our bitter blocker. I think we are quite excited, as I mentioned that we now have blockers that are active against 18 of what we think are the 22 active bitter receptors.
So with this toolbox approach, we think we are going to be in an excellent position to approach other companies, not only in the food and beverage space, but possibly OTC healthcare or pharmaceutical, regarding compounds that are part of the toolbox that could block a variety of agents which have a bitter taste.
Pamela Bassett - Cantor Fitzgerald
Great, thanks very much. Again, congratulations on all the profits.
Kent Snyder
Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Dalton Chandler at Needham & Company. Please proceed.
Dalton Chandler - Needham & Company
Good morning. I just wanted to ask, your guidance had a $1 million revenue for the year from royalties. It's not a big overall number, but I think it's quite a bit higher than your current rate. Could you talk about what assumptions are underlying that?
Kent Snyder
John, would you like to address that?
John Poyhonen
Sure. Hi, Dalton. It's really a function that’s primarily driven based on the commercial revenue that will come from our savory program, as I mentioned with previous caller. We really don’t expect any revenue associated with our sucralose enhancer S2383 until the first quarter of 2010.
So, this would be based our belief of where our current partners, both Nestle and Ajinomoto, are with their scale up and commercialization activities that’s associated with our savory enhancers. So, as we provide a guidance, we expect that to be just over a $1 million versus about $350,000 during 2008.
Dalton Chandler - Needham & Company
Okay, so you don’t have any new product launch assumptions in that number?
John Poyhonen
Yes, as you'll recall from Kent's comments in the prepared comments, he actually indicated that we anticipate that Nestle will be launching reformulated established products during 2009. So, for a portion of the year, we would expect some of those products to be contributing as well.
Dalton Chandler - Needham & Company
So, Nestle would have to launch no later than the third quarter for you to have revenue from them in there, correct?
John Poyhonen
Right, the way our royalty revenue is set up.
Dalton Chandler - Needham & Company
Okay. But given that they still don't have approval, what gives you confidence that they can actually launch at least by 3Q?
Kent Snyder
Sharon, you want to comment on that, in terms of launches by Nestle.
Sharon Wicker
Sure. So, again, as Kent mentioned in the prepared comments, in addition to the products that Nestle has launched over the past year and a half or so, they're now continuing to do additional work on other new products and established products in those same geographies and other areas where they have regulatory approval.
So again, Nestle has asked us to not get into specific details about their plans due to the confidentiality reasons, but based on the information that we have seen during their plan, we feel that they're on track to hit those projected sales number.
Dalton Chandler - Needham & Company
Okay. And then just a couple of quarters back, you had talked about some new initiatives, maybe longer term. But you talked about acquiring additional natural product libraries, and developing the receptor database, and some initiatives to help your customers to get product to the market faster. Can you just give us an update on what's happening there?
Kent Snyder
Well, what we spoke about in the past is, on one hand, adding to our libraries, which certainly help their discovery efforts. Increasing the focus in some programs to do some of the additional product development work here in-house, which we would think would jumpstart some of the commercialization activities that would occur with our collaborators. I think those are some of the key things that we’ve talked about in the past. I don’t know, Mark, if you have any other comments or any additions to make in terms of this technology.
Mark Zoller
Yes. I think the technology for the naturals is continuing. We do get increase about that, but, as Kent indicated, our High Potency Sweetener Program really was put more on a backburner, while we focus on development activities that are much more near-term.
The database is also proving to be very, very helpful and we continue to possibly look for some additional receptors for future work, and one that we’ve mentioned before is to identify a receptor that is involved in fat taste. But again, we are really focusing on the near-term development candidates to really bring those to market.
Dalton Chandler - Needham & Company
Okay. All right, thanks a lot.
Kent Snyder
Thanks, Dalton.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) At this time, there are no other questions, so I’ll turn the call back over to Mr. Snyder to conclude.
Kent Snyder
I'd like to thank all of you for participating in Senomyx's call today. If you have any additional questions, feel free to contact us directly or through our website. We look forward to speaking with you at the end of the next quarter, so thank you very much, everyone.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our conference call for today. All parties may now disconnect.
Copyright policy: All transcripts on this site are the copyright of Seeking Alpha. However, we view them as an important resource for bloggers and journalists, and are excited to contribute to the democratization of financial information on the Internet. (Until now investors have had to pay thousands of dollars in subscription fees for transcripts.) So our reproduction policy is as follows: You may quote up to 400 words of any transcript on the condition that you attribute the transcript to Seeking Alpha and either link to the original transcript or to www.SeekingAlpha.com. All other use is prohibited.
THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HERE IS A TEXTUAL REPRESENTATION OF THE APPLICABLE COMPANY'S CONFERENCE CALL, CONFERENCE PRESENTATION OR OTHER AUDIO PRESENTATION, AND WHILE EFFORTS ARE MADE TO PROVIDE AN ACCURATE TRANSCRIPTION, THERE MAY BE MATERIAL ERRORS, OMISSIONS, OR INACCURACIES IN THE REPORTING OF THE SUBSTANCE OF THE AUDIO PRESENTATIONS. IN NO WAY DOES SEEKING ALPHA ASSUME ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY INVESTMENT OR OTHER DECISIONS MADE BASED UPON THE INFORMATION PROVIDED ON THIS WEB SITE OR IN ANY TRANSCRIPT. USERS ARE ADVISED TO REVIEW THE APPLICABLE COMPANY'S AUDIO PRESENTATION ITSELF AND THE APPLICABLE COMPANY'S SEC FILINGS BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT OR OTHER DECISIONS.
If you have any additional questions about our online transcripts, please contact us at: transcripts@seekingalpha.com. Thank you!