"We go where the technology leads us"

See the Reuters post by Gary M. Stern titled Solazyme shoots high with algae makeover noting:

It was a busy year for Solazyme in 2011, one which saw an IPO floated in May and shares halving in value since then, due to prospects for the renewables industry declining.

CEO Jonathan Wolfson is quoted: "After the first year as we were scaling up the technology, we couldn't envision how the economics would work to hit high volume and low margin markets. Unlike an academic lab, this is a commercial business (...) In order to succeed, we had to pivot. It was adapt or die. We had to make adjustments to our business plan and the technology,"

Separately, note US 8,119,583 to Solazyme issued on Tuesday, 21 Feb. 2012:

Abstract

Soap and cosmetic products can be made from oil-bearing microbial biomass via the alkaline hydrolysis of glycerolipids and fatty acid esters to fatty acid salts. The saponified microbial oils/lipids can be combined with a variety of additives to produce compositions for use as soaps and other cosmetic products, which may also contain other constituents of the biomass, including unsaponified oils, glycerol and carotenoids, among others.