BUSINESS
AKZO TO SLASH PHARMA CHEMICALS Jobs and capacity cutbacks are in response to poor outsourcing market
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KZO N O B E L S D I O S Y N T H
pharmaceutical ingredi ents manufacturing unit is embarking on a major downsizing in the face of declining demand for its products. Diosynth will reduce global chemical synthesis capacity by closing its site in Mexico City and scaling back facilities in the Netherlands. Last month, it re duced capacity at its Buckhaven, Scotland, site. The Mexican clo sure will affect almost all 175 em ployees there, and the cutbacks in the Netherlands and Scotland will eliminate 100 and 75 posi
MATERIALS
tions, respectively Diosynth em ploys about 3,500 overall. The business says it is facing a significant rise in overcapacity as a result of a severe decline in de mand for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) from its cus tomers due to destocking and overcapacity Captive API demand from Akzo Nobel's Organon unit is also shrinking, Diosynth says, because of destocking and lower sales of some products. "Overcapacity in our chemical synthesis operations is too high to ignore," says Johan Evers, gen eral manager of Diosynth. He says
SCIENCE
RIBBONS INTO RINGS Unique crystal growth process leads to seamless ZnO nanoring structure
Z
HONG L. WANG IS, IN A WAY,
a lord of the nanorings. By coaxing a zinc oxide nanobelt—a long, thin ribbon com-
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