Business Concentrates MATERIALS
▸ SABIC, Aramco study oil-to-chemicals Saudi Basic Industries and Saudi Aramco are joining to study the construction of an oil-to-chemicals complex in Saudi Arabia. The state-owned partners seek to make chemicals directly from crude oil, rather than from naphtha, a product of oil refining. Currently, most chemicals produced in Saudi Arabia are derived from natural gas, but the Saudi government would like to diversify its feedstock and product slate. In May, after the government announced an economic modernization project and a stock offering for Aramco, speculation swirled that Aramco and SABIC, respectively the country’s largest oil and chemical producers, would merge. The firms denied the rumors but pledged to work together.—
ALEX TULLO
3-D PRINTING
▸ Covestro plunges into 3-D printing Covestro, the former Bayer MaterialScience, is making a push into three-dimensional printing. The company opened a lab at its headquarters in Leverkusen, Germany, meant to develop polycarbonate and
Universal beefs up OLEDs Universal Display, a New Jersey-based developer of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technologies, is making two moves to expand its chemistry capabilities. The company will spend close to $100 million to acquire BASF’s OLED intellectual property portfolio, which contains more than 500 issued and pending patents largely involving phosphorescent materials and technologies. Universal says the assets will aid its goal of creating an all-phosphorescent light-emitting stack. BASF ceased OLED research at the end of 2015. Separately, Universal will acquire the contract research firm Adesis for about $36 million. Based in New Castle, Del., Adesis employs more than 40 chemists who support pharmaceutical, electronics, and other companies. Adesis has worked with Universal in recent years to help develop emissive materials for OLEDs.—MICHAEL MCCOY
terials has been an obstacle to widespread adoption of 3-D printing.—ALEX TULLO
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
▸ FTC challenge scuttles merger … Superior Plus has called off its $982 million purchase of fellow Canadian chemical firm Canexus after a U.S. Federal Trade Commission move to block the deal. FTC contends the deal would have put more than half of North American sodium chlorate capacity under one roof and led “to anticompetitive reductions in output and higher prices.” Sodium chlorate is used to bleach wood pulp for paper. Superior said it was willing to divest sodium chlorate capacity to lower the combined firms’ market share. However, it could not work out an extension to the June 29 deal closing deadline—MARC REISCH
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
▸ … As Air Liquide sells operations to Matheson
Researcher Roland Wagner watches component manufacturing in Covestro’s new 3-D printing lab. polyurethane materials for fused filament, laser sintering, and stereolithographic 3-D processes. Covestro says a paucity of ma-
14
C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | JULY 4, 2016
Air Liquide will sell to Matheson Tri-Gas the bulk of the assets that the Federal Trade Commission required it to divest in connection with its May purchase of Airgas. Matheson will get 18 air separation units, two nitrous oxide plants, four liquid carbon dioxide plants, and two dry ice units. Altogether, Air Liquide is required to sell assets that generated $270 million in sales last year. Matheson is a division of Taiyo Nippon Sanso, the world’s fifth-largest industrial gas company.—ALEX TULLO
BIOBASED CHEMICALS
▸ Amyris inks scent, technology deals Amyris will expand a partnership with Givaudan that makes fragrance molecules via sugar fermentation. Under the new multiyear deal, the two firms will design molecules and scale them up at Amyris’s facility in Brotas, Brazil. Separately, Amyris has joined with synthetic biology firm Ginkgo Bioworks in an agreement that will match its Brotas plant, capable of making products on multiple production lines, with Ginkgo’s organism design foundry. The two firms say they will boost each other’s capabilities to deliver a combined 70 contracted products.—
MELODY BOMGARDNER
SPECIALTY CHEMICALS
▸ Encapsulation firm buys itaconic acid maker Revolymer, a U.K. company selling encapsulation technology for controlled release, has agreed to acquire the U.S.-based specialty polymer firm Itaconix for $7 million and a further $6 milO lion subject to performance criteria. ItacOH HO onix produces polyO mers from biobased itaconic acid. It has Itaconic acid 40 pending or issued patents relating to itaconic acid-based polymers for uses including mineral dispersion in paints and odor removal in home care products.—ALEX SCOTT
CREDIT: COVESTRO
PETROCHEMICALS
OUTSOURCING
fund-raising. It struck an initial deal with Merck soon thereafter.—MICHAEL MCCOY
▸ Icagen to acquire Sanofi R&D site
PHARMACEUTICALS
Icagen, a drug discovery services firm, will acquire a Sanofi facility near Tucson, Ariz. The 26-year-old facility has its roots as a University of Arizona start-up and offers ultra-high-throughput biology, drug screening, and chemistry capabilities. Icagen will retain a majority of the scientists at the site, many with expertise in synthetic and computational chemistry and in rare disease biology and phenotypic screening. The deal includes a multiyear agreement for Icagen to supply discovery services to Sanofi and manage a Sanofi compound library.—ANN THAYER
ONCOLOGY
▸ Moderna wins more backing from Merck Merck & Co. is paying Moderna Therapeutics $200 million in a deal to develop personalized cancer vaccines based on Moderna’s mRNA vaccine technology and Merck’s Keytruda anti-PD-1 cancer therapy. Moderna will use the money to lead the R&D effort and to help build a vaccine manufacturing facility in the Boston area. Moderna made news last year when it raised $450 million in the largest-ever biotech
▸ Sanofi, Boehringer agree to swap assets After six months of negotiations, Sanofi and Boehringer Ingelheim have finalized a $25 billion deal to exchange Merial, Sanofi’s animal health unit, for Boehringer’s consumer health care business. Merial is being valued at $12.6 billion and the consumer health business at $7.4 billion. To make up the difference, Boehringer will pay Sanofi $5.2 billion in cash. Pending regulatory approvals, the swap is to be completed by the end of the year. Boehringer’s animal health business will more than double in size to an estimated $4.2 billion in annual sales. Sanofi’s consumer health sales should hit $5.4 billion.—ANN THAYER
VACCINES
▸ Merck KGaA to clean up vaccines Merck KGaA and the International Vaccine Institute are joining to develop improved vaccine manufacturing processes using funding and expertise provided by the Ger-
Business Roundup
CREDIT: MERCK KGaA
▸ Cathay Industrial Biotech is embarking on a $500 million project to boost capacity for biobased long-chain dibasic acids, 1,5-pentanediamine, and derivative nylons. Shanghai-based Cathay calls itself the world’s only industrial biotech firm to capture a dominant market share from chemically produced incumbents. ▸ 908 Devices recently opened a 200-m2 applications development and R&D center near the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The firm, which makes handheld mass spectrometers and microfluidic separation devices, also received a
$165,000 state tax incentive to create 11 jobs at its Boston headquarters. ▸ Arkema has opened an innovation center at South Korea’s HanYang University to support customers in electronics, composite materials, and renewable energy markets. The 1,000-m2 facility supports 10 scientists and complements the firm’s research centers in China and Japan. ▸ Monsanto and Sumitomo Chemical have joined to fight tough-to-control weeds. The two firms will further develop Monsanto’s traits for crops tolerant to the protoporphy-
man firm. The partners seek to advance vaccine manufacture by raising process yields and improving purification steps, Merck and IVI want particularly for to improve vaccine vaccines desmanufacturing. tined for developing countries. Their initial focus will be a vaccine for typhoid.—ALEX SCOTT
START-UPS
▸ Two university spin-offs emerge Morphic Therapeutic has raised $51.5 million in a first round of venture capital funding from investors including Pfizer and AbbVie. Founded to translate advances from the lab of Harvard Medical School professor Timothy A. Springer, Morphic is developing small molecules that treat disease by targeting cell membrane proteins called integrins. Meanwhile, Storm Therapeutics has raised about $16 million in a first round of funding from investors including Pfizer and Merck & Co. A spin-off from the University of Cambridge’s Gurdon Institute, Storm seeks to develop small-molecule drugs that target RNA-modifying enzymes involved in cancer.—MICHAEL MCCOY
rinogen oxidase, or PPO, inhibitor class of herbicides in tandem with Sumitomo’s new broad-spectrum PPO inhibition chemistry. ▸ Evonik Industries is acquiring Transferra Nanosciences, a Canadian contract development and manufacturing organization. Transferra, which offers liposomal drug delivery systems, will become part of Evonik’s parenteral drug delivery technologies and services business. ▸ AbbVie has ended a partnership with Infinity Pharmaceuticals to develop duvelisib, a PI3K inhibitor targeted at various blood cancers, after a disappointing clinical trial. Infinity will lay off 100 employ-
ees, 58% of its workforce. ▸ Novartis will pay Xencor $150 million for rights to codevelop T-cell-engaging bispecific antibodies targeting acute myeloid leukemia and B-cell malignancies. Novartis also receives rights to develop four other programs and to use Xencor’s antibody engineering platform to develop up to 10 additional antibodies. ▸ Charles River Laboratories has acquired Blue Stream Laboratories, a Woburn, Mass.-based contract research organization specializing in biologics and biosimilars. CRL notes that it is making the purchase at a time of increasing development of biologic and biosimilar drugs.
JULY 4, 2016 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
15
