SENESTECH QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER || FALL 2020 ISSUE 5
Letter from Chief Executive Officer 02 Underscoring the Advantage of Fertility Management to Successful IPM Programs 03 Marketing Moves to Manifest Commercial Goals 04 Proving Ground: ContraPest® Scales to Success 06 Phoenix Rising: SenesTech Extends Reach with Relocation08 SenesTech Aligns Operational Response with Commercial Ambitions 09 A Solutions Strategy: Measure Twice, Cut Once 10 Presto Pest Control—Preferred Partner Spotlight 10
06 PROVING GROUND:
CONTRAPEST SCALES TO SUCCESS
Results from our Washington DC Pilot Program
GREETINGS!
Here we are, entering the new fall season with the COVID-19 crisis still with us. We hope you are all well and safe, looking forward to normalcy in the not too distant future. The past few months have shown us, in living color, the unanticipated public health consequences associated with rodent populations. When businesses shuttered and, in some cases, even closed, we saw how rats will adapt – ranging beyond their traditional locations and with greater aggressiveness. SenesTech has adapted as well. Despite the economic challenges occurring around the world, we remain focused on our mission and continue to find new ways to achieve commercial success. To refresh your memory: Our goal is to provide effective, but non-lethal, solutions to the age-old challenge of rat infestations. ContraPest, the company’s flagship rat fertility control product, is disrupting the way pest management has always been done, yielding proven and impressive results. Constantly looking to the future, SenesTech is targeting new verticals and impacting realworld applications within industries like agribusiness, national retails and municipalities. It just so happens that the COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated ContraPest’s potential to help municipalities achieve substantial, sustainable reductions in their rat populations. Brandy Pyzyna, SenesTech’s Vice President of Research and Regulatory Affairs, shares more about this, spotlighting our successful IPM deployment in Washington, D.C. Kim Wolin, our Executive Vice President of Operations, explains how we’ve shifted our operational response to address the COVID-19 crisis in order to stay our course. Part of that involves, as our Chief Financial Officer, Tom Chesterman, explains, relocating our manufacturing operations to Phoenix, Arizona. This development mirrors our efforts to perfect our product development and management processes, which our Project Manager, Sharon Dinges, details. Expanding further into the commercial markets, we refined our marketing efforts — an initiative headed up by Michelle Kristoff, SenesTech’s Director of Marketing. We have added a new focus on the DIY customer in both residential and commercial settings, while continuing our aggressive approach to our key target markets - municipalities and agribusiness, along with zoos and sanctuaries. Steve Krause, our Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing, emphasizes the importance of fertility management to effective Integrated Pest Management (IPM) programs, showing how ContraPest dramatically improves the efficacy of traditional methods, providing a powerful new tool to the professionals servicing our target industries and communities. Join me in recognizing this quarter’s Preferred Partner, Jim Rossi of Presto Pest Control, who specializes in effective, yet low-impact pest control solutions. In addition to our partnership, Jim will collaborate with SenesTech as a consultant on industry challenges, providing insight into what PMPs are looking for. As we head into this new quarter, I want to extend my thanks to you all for celebrating our successes in support of our future endeavors.
Ken Siegel Ken Siegel Chief Executive Officer 2
SenesTech SenesTech Quarterly Quarterly Newsletter NewsletterSummer Summer2020 2020––Issue Issue45
UNDERSCORING THE ADVANTAGE OF FERTILITY MANAGEMENT TO SUCCESSFUL IPM PROGRAMS STEVE KRAUSE, PHD, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, SALES AND MARKETING
IPM programs use pest control tools for two purposes: to prevent or slow the rate of pest outbreaks or to immediately reduce pest levels. The purposes depend on the population statistics at time of deployment. Low populations are ideal for preventive measure applications, while outbreaks require immediate action.
As SenesTech continues to grow our commercial operations, we look forward to helping you determine how ContraPest fertility management can enhance your IPM program.
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Prevention tactics can and should include improved sanitation to remove food and habitat sources or repairing infrastructure to reduce the potential for rats to look for resources inside residences. These measures can now be supplemented by a new tool that reduces the reproductive rate of rats: ContraPest, a liquid contraceptive pest control tool designed to manage Norway and roof rats. Fertility management is a proven IPM tool in agricultural, forestry and insect vector control programs. nitation At SenesTech, our experts Sa believe it will also become a foundational tool in many rodent control programs.
However, by reducing the birth rate of rats, all of your tactics — both proactive and reactive — will become more effective as fertility management will produce decreased rat populations and, therefore, less pest pressure.
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When it comes to strategies that result in solutions you can count on, IPM is a game changer. Simply put, IPM is the integration of multiple tools to manage populations of pests like rats.
Of course, in some situations, prevention tactics alone may not always provide the control you need when you need it, due to the severity of the infestation.
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Game Changing!
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MARKETING MOVES T MANIFEST COMMERC Ever evolving, SenesTech is now focusing our marketing efforts on the Direct to Consumer (DTC) availability of our products by targeting the Do it Yourself (DIY) consumer – primarily in the residential setting. The DTC market is made up of people who prefer the “do-it-yourself” option because they want to actively monitor and service their own property.
And we can help them with that! In order to reach them, we need a marketing approach designed to understand, identify, and then solve those unique problems facing that population. For that reason, our marketing team has spent ample time focused on the voice
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SenesTech SenesTech Quarterly Quarterly Newsletter NewsletterSummer Summer2020 2020––Issue Issue45
of the customer and industry in order to determine our ideal segments that will prime us for commercial growth. A few months ago, we launched SenesTech’s Online Store, which allows consumers to order our innovative products directly. Now we are engaged in building a broader digital strategy to streamline the consumer decision process and support their buying journey. We are also determined to connect with consumers who are quick to seek assistance with specific jobs because of the complexity and/or technology required. These are people who are eager to hire a trusted mechanic to do an oil change, or a contractor to put up sheetrock, or an accountant to file their taxes. The pest management industry is no different -many consumers prefer to hire a pest
TO CIAL GOALS
MICHELLE KRISTOFF – DIRECTOR OF MARKETING
management professional (PMP) to do what they do best, rather than attempt a solution on their own. Our agribusiness consumers are a great example. Although experts in managing their agricultural submarkets, these professionals would rather partner with a PMP to mitigate rat-related losses by servicing their facility on a monthly or quarterly basis. We recognize that our rat contraceptive pest control product, ContraPest, is an ideal tool to support structural, municipal, and agribusiness verticals, as well as zoos and sanctuaries. We will continue to tailor our marketing strategies to reach these populations and realize our commercial ambitions.
Stay tuned for more marketing updates and track our exciting developments as we continue to expand our commercialization efforts by subscribing to our newsroom posts and following us on social media. @senestech
www.senestech.com/newsroom/
SenesTech Quarterly Newsletter Summer 2020 – Issue 4
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PROVING GROUND:
CONTRAPEST SCAL BRANDY PYZYNA, VICE PRESIDENT OF RESEARCH AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS
Fantasy author O.R. Melling wisely observed, “You can’t really know what you are made of until you are tested.” Eager to advance our commercial goals, we knew we needed to put our flagship product, ContraPest, to the test. So, we did. Confident in the research and development efforts that created ContraPest, we were well aware that success in a lab does not necessarily translate to real world success in larger settings. We needed a challenge. We worked with Washington, D.C, a city with a notorious rat problem. Partnering with DC Health, we endeavored to explore ContraPest’s potential to protect public health and improve lives. This 2018 pilot program focused on 13 municipal alleys with 139 bait stations. In addition to testing larger scale efficacy, the goal was to determine whether ContraPest could improve upon an IPM program.
Ultimately, ContraPest proved successful on both counts. Using cameras to monitor the rat populations between two alleys, the decrease in rat sightings was significant -- a reduction ranging between 51-88%. Between the confirmed consumption of ContraPest supported by camera data and in field personnel observations, we were able to measure the improved control of rodents.
D.C. Health’s thorough IPM program and its inclusion of ContraPest provided SenesTech with ample evidence on the value of fertility management in reducing rat populations.
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Having passed our test with flying colors and fewer rats, we are proud of our unique position to improve the lives of constituents with our contraceptive pest control tool in municipal neighborhoods.
The recent and ongoing COVID-19 public health crisis has underscored the need for our product, an emphasis that supports SenesTech’s continued commercialization efforts.
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SenesTech Quarterly Newsletter Summer 2020 – Issue 5
LES TO SUCCESS Using cameras to monitor the rat populations between two alleys, the decrease in rat sightings was significant — a reduction ranging between
51-88%
We now know what we’re made of… and we’re ready for our next challenge.
Phoenix Rising:
SENESTECH EXTENDS REACH TOM CHESTERMAN, WITH RELOCATION CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER As the story goes, SenesTech’s original founders designed and created ContraPest in a kitchen. It seems like most great ideations happen that way. However, in order to be a commercial success, you must be able to manufacture your product consistently and at scale. In the spirit of all start-ups, the SenesTech team worked with what they had, converting an empty warehouse into a manufacturing space. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Nick Murphy, Vice President of Manufacturing, SenesTech Taking these challenges as transformed from lab-scale, hand production to an affordable, stable, consistent process, at the scale opportunities for growth and required for commercial success. Our latest challenge comes in the form of logistical limitations, on-site constraints, and a shallow pool of sophisticated manufacturing applicants from which to recruit for our team. Once again, it’s time to stretch our legs so to speak and explore a new space.
improvement that naturally accompany big changes, we’re determined to see SenesTech strengthen its commercial position.
Phoenix, Arizona offers an ideal site that is clean and well-equipped with very little improvement required. The city of Phoenix is assisting us with acquiring the site, recruiting talented applicants, and potentially lending financial support. Set to begin in August, we anticipate the transition to take between 30-60 days before full-scale production resumes. Although most of our team is moving, those who remain in Flagstaff will transition to a work-from-home model, as so many employees around the country are attempting to master during this unprecedented pandemic.
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SenesTech Quarterly Newsletter Summer 2020 – Issue 5
SenesTech Aligns Operational Response
WITH COMMERCIAL AMBITIONS KIM WOLIN, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF OPERATIONS
Timing is everything. As you know, SenesTech is extending its reach into commercial markets. Our commercial ambitions were forced to navigate a considerable speed bump resulting from the COVID-19 global pandemic which has rezoned our workplaces, in many cases, right into our own homes. At SenesTech, our COVID-19 strategy is to mitigate employee exposure in order to reduce the number of individuals who contract the disease in order to keep our workforce strong and stay the course towards our commercial goals. Although many of our employees have been relocated to their home offices, those who are unable to work remotely, for instance, our manufacturing sector, have embraced our policies and procedures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 on site. In addition, we have adopted a new hiring strategy, following the reorganization of our Sales and Marketing department. Our new hires in manufacturing will move to Phoenix during the month of August as we move and open the new manufacturing facility. Additionally, we are devoting efforts to increase efficiency in our IT processes for our remote employees by leveraging
online applications, such as Microsoft Teams. We’re also pursuing more online HR programs to better facilitate onboarding, hiring, and training while cutting down on paper usage and waste.
By aligning the efforts of our operations and HR divisions, we are confident in our ability to keep our employees safe from exposure to COVID-19 and continue advancing our commercial ambitions.
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A SOLUTIONS STRATEGY:
MEASURE TWICE, C SHARON ELIZABETH DINGES, PROJECT MANAGER SenesTech has stepped up its product development and project management processes, reflecting our commitment to delivering new solutions to the pest management market. As we architect
These requests often involve many, if not all, departments within SenesTech, requiring close coordination from start to finish in order to: MANAGE DIFFERENT DISPENSING METHODS
and build-out our Project Management Office (PMO), we continue to target best-in-class products and solutions for the pest management market. In order to do this, we embrace best-standards, processes, quality, and speed-to-market.
DEVELOP SOLUTIONS FOR GROWTH IN EXISTING MARKETS AND EXPANSION INTO NEW MARKETS
Committed to delivering the Right Solution, to the Right Market(s), at the Right Time, our forward-thinking organization manages our multi-year product and solutions roadmap based on internal opportunity analysis and strategic initiatives. Additionally, we strive to be responsive to external requests for new products and solutions.
MAINTAIN REGULATORY COMPLIANCE AT THE EPA, STATE-LEVEL, ETC.
DEVELOP SOLUTIONS FOR MANAGING NEW SPECIES
SPEARHEAD OPERATIONS AND FIELD PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENTS
Presto Pest Control—Preferred Partner Spotlight AMANDA SILVA, GUEST CONTENT WRITER
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Join us in welcoming Jim Rossi, our preferred partner at Presto Pest Control, who collaborates with SenesTech as an industry consultant. Presto Pest Control serves California’s Bay Area, specifically the Alameda, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and San Mateo counties.
Presto Pest Control offers its customers who have green ambitions and carbon footprint concerns the opportunity to choose eco-friendly chemicals. The 24-hour response times ensure a 100% service guarantee.
Fully licensed by the State of California, Presto Pest Control protects client’s homes, businesses, employees and customers through low-impact pesticide treatments. All Presto technicians have extensive experience and are trained year-round to ensure the safest chemical applications and leverage the latest technological advancements.
When it comes to rat infestations, Presto Pest Control technicians are trained to address current infestations while preventing future problems. This is where the Presto Pest Control partnership with SenesTech is a smart strategy, with ContraPest the contraceptive pest control tool supporting their efforts.
SenesTech Quarterly Newsletter Summer 2020 – Issue 5
CUT ONCE With so many amazing opportunities for growth it is necessary that we “rack and stack” these opportunities and ask ourselves the following questions: DOES THE BUSINESS CASE / FINANCIAL ANALYSIS INDICATE REFLECT FAVORABLY FOR OUR SHAREHOLDERS AND SENESTECH? “IF WE BUILD IT, WILL THEY BUY?” OF THE MANY OPPORTUNITIES, WHAT ARE THE CRITERIA FOR SELECTING ONE PROJECT OVER ANOTHER? DO WE HAVE THE NECESSARY RESOURCES – PEOPLE, PARTNERS, AND/OR PRODUCTION CAPABILITIES? DO WE HAVE THE NECESSARY CLARITY ON PROJECT REQUIREMENTS?
As we continue to refine our product development and project management processes, we keep in mind basketball player and head coach, John Wooden’s observation, “If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?”
Investing the time to get it right, right now will support SenesTech’s successful commercial evolution.
Join us at the 95th Annual
AZA 2020 CONFERENCE Sept 14-18 VIRTUAL
October 12-16 Expect to Learn How to Keep Your Animals and Habitats Safe from Rats with ContraPest
Virtual Convention Connected. Inspired. Educated.
Join us!
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IMAGINING IPM AS A MULTI-COGGED MACHINE
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Lately, our team has taken to talking about IPM as a machine with many cogs. Each cog represents a proactive or reactive approach to pest management and they all, ideally, fit together for optimal functionality. ContraPest, we believe, is a pivotal cog that extends the efficacy of IPM programs. At least, that’s what our partners at D.C. Health discovered. Don’t miss the details of this success story! Read more about ContraPest’s IPM success in Washington, D.C. on page 6.
“Following the completion of a four-month study of the effectiveness of ContraPest, there is no longer any doubt that ContraPest is an effective treatment for rat control.” Ian Gilson, ZACKS SMALL CAPITAL RESEARCH
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SenesTech has created something extraordinary. We have created a product that significantly reduces population size of rats, in effect, helping foster a healthier and more sustainable world. The icon to the left is meant to represent the work we do at SenesTech. We offer a liquid, contraceptive solution to rodent overpopulation. We tackle the core of the problem: reproduction. We care about others’ pest problems and want to help them find a solution.
FOR MORE INFORMATION EMAIL: info@senestech.com CALL: 1-866-886-RATS VISIT: www.senestech.com
ContraPest® is registered federally as a General Use Product when used as directed. However, in some states, due to applicator expertise, it is a Restricted Use Product. Please check with your local state regulatory agency to determine restriction status. Read and follow all label instructions for target species Norway and roof rats.
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**PROTECTA EVO EXPRESS® is a registered trademark of Bell Laboratories, Inc. and SenesTech is not related or affiliated with Bell Laboratories, Inc.
SenesTech Quarterly Newsletter Summer 2020 – Issue 4