Business Concentrates MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
Electronics industry to begin using MOFs Technology will enhance gas purity and safety NuMat Technologies, one of C&EN’s 10 start-ups to watch in 2016, has agreed to produce metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) for Versum Materials, a supplier of materials and gases for the semiconductor industry. It is one of the first commercial supply deals for MOFs—an emerging class of nanoporous materials—anywhere in the world. MOFs have surface areas far ex-
Ion-X, a combination of two MOFs, is the first product for NuMat, a tech start-up cofounded by Benjamin Hernandez (left) and Omar Farha. ceeding traditional adsorbents and can be used to selectively capture, store, or separate gases and liquids. NuMat will supply Versum with Ion-X, a product featuring two MOFs in granular form. Versum will add Ion-X to canisters to enhance the purity and safe storage of the reactive gases arsine, phosphine, and boron trifluoride, which it sells as dopants to the semiconductor industry. Versum also plans to design and build a
new Ion-X dopant gas fill plant at its production site in Sihwa, South Korea. The adsorbant properties of Ion-X will enable the dopant gases to be stored at subatmospheric pressure and still hold a similar amount of gas as standard high-pressure canisters do, NuMat says. This storage reduces risks posed by the toxic gases should a canister leak. The MOFs also stabilize the reactive gases. Additionally, the MOFs act as traps for impurities, providing a low-cost way to meet the electronic industry’s high-purity requirements. Overall, Ion-X has performance advantages over carbon-based adsorbent technology when used in the ion implant processes during the manufacture of semiconductor devices, NuMat says. NuMat’s know-how is largely in the design of its MOFs and knowledge of the right raw materials and reaction parameters. NuMat’s commercial deal with Versum follows the first commercial use of a MOF in mid-2016, designed and produced by Belfast, Northern Ireland, start-up MOF Technologies to slow the ripening of fruit with the controlled release of the gas 1-methylcyclopropene. MOFs have been in development for more than 10 years. Gas producers had planned to introduce them commercially several years ago, but production costs proved too high for large-scale applications. NuMat and MOF Technologies have developed relatively low-cost production technologies. Both firms say they are initially targeting niche applications.—ALEX
SCOTT
Cancer drug approval Last week the U.S. Food & Drug Administration approved the acute myeloid leukemia drug Idhifa (enasidenib) for people with genetic mutations in the mitochondrial metabolic enzyme isocitrate dehydrogenase. The candidate molecule, which began Phase 1 trials in 2013, was granted both priority review and orphan drug status by FDA. The wholesale cost of Idhifa is $24,872 per month. Idhifa was developed by Celgene, which licensed the molecule from Agios Pharmaceuticals, a cancer and genetic disease drug discovery firm.
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Activists challenge DowDuPont breakup As Dow Chemical and DuPont draw closer to consummating their merger later this month, they are facing mounting pressure to amend their plan to break up the new firm, DowDuPont. In May, Third Point, an investment fund operated by activist investor Daniel S. Loeb, put out a report arguing that the Dow Corning silicones business should be allocated to the future specialty products company, which will have headquarters in Wilmington, Del. Currently, the business is slated for what is to be a materials science company based in Midland, Mich., which would be composed mostly of the current Dow Chemical. Another Dow shareholder, Glenview Capital Management, has also been public about its concerns. Now, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal on July 30, investment firm and Dow shareholder Jana Partners and DuPont investor Trian Fund Management have consulted with Dow and DuPont management about the breakup plan. In June, Dow and Dupont hired the consulting group McKinsey & Co. for a review, expected to be completed within a month and a half, of the breakup. Dow insists Dow Corning would be a better fit in the materials science firm. Dow is bumping up its synergy target for the merger with the silicones business from $400 million annually, its best guess a year ago, to $650 million, largely due to the integration between it and the rest of Dow Corning. “This is such a fit into the materials science company, it bears no recognition to what any other company could have done,” says Dow Chief Executive Officer Andrew N. Liveris.—ALEX TULLO
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METAL-ORGANIC FRAMEWORKS
