Biotech Values

[acgood]

SNMX-

Neither Campbell's nor Solae terminated their deals with SNMX. Campbell's deal was for the salt enhancer research, which was early stage and high risk. there was a scientific setback a couple years ago, and they declined to negotiate a new deal going forward. There was some commentary about campbell shifting focus away from trying to improve health of their soups, and more of a focus on taste/ingredients. SNMX ingredients would virtually all have to be listed as "artificial flavors" which would be an issue with that. But the main problem was that any potential salt enhancer is years away, and the first round of "hits" in the screening assay turned out to be a red herring because the candidate salt taste receptor identified was incorrect.

Solae's research collaboration (bitter blockers for soy) ended as planned and then moved into development phase where they no longer conduct/fund research, but were evaluating specific candidates for potential use in their products. It was recently disclosed that they ended up deciding to not pursue them commercially. The same bitter program ingredient candidate is still under evaluation by a different partner (I think Nestle, but isn't disclosed)