Business Concentrates BIOBASED CHEMICALS
▸ AkzoNobel rejects PPG’s second bid AkzoNobel has rejected a second takeover bid from PPG Industries, this time for $26.3 billion. PPG made its initial offer of about $22 billion on March 2. The two paint companies appear to be some distance from agreeing to a deal. PPG says the Dutch firm refused to meet and rejected the revised offer one day after it was made. AkzoNobel says the new proposal doesn’t reflect the firm’s plan to spin off its chemicals business and will lead to significant job cuts. Four Dutch provinces have released a statement suggesting the takeover could result in the loss of 5,000 jobs in the Netherlands.—ALEX SCOTT
BioAmber investors warned The accounting firm Deloitte has told bio-succinic acid maker BioAmber that the company’s 2016 financial reports raise “substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.” Deloitte pointed to BioAmber’s negative working capital, accumulated deficit, and net loss from operations. The company’s revenues for the year of $8.2 million were up substantially from 2015 as a result of higher sales from its new facility in Sarnia, Ontario, but fourth-quarter sales disappointed. In a conference call with analysts, BioAmber Chief Operating Officer Fabrice Orecchioni said the company contended with lower prices for competing petrochemicals during the year. In addition, the plant’s purification process operated at 40-50% of capacity. But the company said it is making process improvements and expects prices and sales to grow considerably this year. In addition, it is confident that it can obtain debt financing, if needed, to operate for the next 12 months.—MELODY
BOMGARDNER
ELECTRONIC MATERIALS
▸ Light Polymers raises $24 million
PETROCHEMICALS
▸ China, Saudi Arabia pledge collaboration The heads of Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC) and Saudi Aramco signed agreements with Chinese refining and chemical firms during a visit to China with a delegation led by Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz. SABIC and Sinopec agreed to study an unspecified Chinese investment in Saudi Arabia and to consider additional investments in their petrochemical joint venture in Tianjin, China. Aramco and Sinopec will continue to study building a coal-to-chemicals complex in Ningxia Province. Aramco and China North Industries will explore a refinery and petrochemical joint venture. And Aramco agreed to study a reinforced plastics investment with the Chinese firm Aerosun.—JEAN-FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
COATINGS
▸ Archroma tech center opens in England The specialty chemical maker Archroma has opened a surface and coating technology center at its lab in Bradford, England. The company says the center will develop barrier and surface coatings for food and other packaging. “Consumers are looking for safe, convenient, and sustainable
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C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | MARCH 27, 2017
Plueckhan (center) and other Archroma executives at the opening of the technology center. packaging,” says Beate Plueckhan, head of Archroma’s Europe, Middle East, and Africa business.—MICHAEL MCCOY
SPECIALTY CHEMICALS
▸ BASF leather business goes to Stahl BASF has agreed to sell its leather treatment chemicals business to the Dutch firm Stahl. BASF will receive a 16% share in Stahl as part of the transaction, which includes BASF’s leather chemicals plant in L’Hospitalet, Spain. About 210 BASF staffers will transfer to Stahl, of whom about 110 are in Asia. Under the agreement, BASF will also provide significant volumes of leather chemicals to Stahl for the “mid- to long-term,” BASF says. Stahl, which has more than 1,800 employees, says the combined business will have annual sales of more than $900 million.—ALEX SCOTT
Bay Area start-up Light Polymers has raised $24 million in its first round of venture funding. The company is developing lyotropic liquid crystals, which it says can dramatically improve light efficiency in LED lighting, displays, and other devices. The crystals are water-based and self-aligning, in contrast with traditional liquid crystals, which require the use of solvents and a separate alignment process. Light Polymers will use the funds to scale up its chemistry for organic light-emitting diode displays.—MELODY BOMGARDNER
PHARMACEUTICAL CHEMICALS
▸ Noramco, Teewinot link for cannabinoids The active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) maker Noramco plans to push into the cannabinoid business with the use of biosynthesis technology from Teewinot Life Sciences. Noramco says it will create 10 to 15 cannabinoid reference standards with the Teewinot technology. It will also
OH
O Dronabinol (synthetic THC)
CREDIT: ARCHROMA
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
evaluate using the technology to commercially produce dronabinol (synthetic THC), known for its effectiveness in pain management and other therapeutic uses. Albany Molecular Research Inc., another API maker, licensed Teewinot’s technology to make cannabichromene last year.—
▸ Biogen’s patent on Tecfidera upheld
MICHAEL MCCOY
BIOBASED MATERIALS
▸ Hitachi beefs up regenerative medicine Hitachi Chemical will pay $75 million to buy all the shares that it doesn’t already own in the cell therapy firm PCT. A year ago, Hitachi had paid $20 million for a 20% stake in the firm. Now majority-owned by Caladrius Biosciences, PCT is a contract manufacturer of cells used in regenerative medicine. Hitachi, which is building a cell manufacturing plant in Yokohama, Japan, says full ownership of PCT will help it expand globally in the regenerative medicine business. PCT runs facilities in several countries.—JEAN-FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
POLYMERS
▸ Solvay enters medical device field Solvay is entering the medical device business with a new product for fabricating removable partial denture frames. The
A removable partial denture frame made with a Solvay aryl ketone polymer. product, Dentivera, is a disc of aryl ketone polymer from which dental lab technicians mill a denture frame. Such frames are typically made of metal, which is heavier and less comfortable, Solvay says. Solvay already markets several polymers used to make medical devices.—MICHAEL MCCOY
ONCOLOGY
▸ Bristol-Myers signs deal with CytomX Bristol-Myers Squibb and CytomX Therapeutics are expanding a drug discovery collaboration that dates back to 2014. To four ongoing projects the partners will add up to six cancer and two other drug targets using CytomX’s Probody technology. Bristol-Myers will pay $200 million up front, along with research funding and as much as $448 million in potential milestones for each new target. Probody therapeutics are designed to be activated by proteases in the tumor microenvironment.—ANN THAYER
Business Roundup
CREDIT: SOLVAY
▸ Toray Industries will spend more than $320 million over five years to roughly double capacity for synthetic suede at its Italian subsidiary Alcantara. Toray owns 70% of Alcantara, which makes a fabric used mostly in car interiors. Mitsui & Co. owns the other 30%. ▸ Huntsman Corp. will close the rest of its titanium dioxide facility in Calais, France, later this year. Part of the plant was shuttered in 2015. The new closure will eliminate 108 jobs and save $15 million annually.
▸ Solvay will buy all the renewable energy certificates for 15 years from what it says will be South Carolina’s largest solar farm. To open by the end of the year, the Moffett Solar 1 farm will help Solvay cut the carbon intensity of its operations by 40% by 2025. ▸ Lubrizol plans to increase its stake in its Indian subsidiary Lubrizol India to 74% from 50% currently. Coowned by Indian Oil Corp., Lubrizol India makes lubricant and fuel additives.
The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office’s Patent Trial & Appeal Board has ruled in Biogen’s favor regarding a patent on the company’s multiple sclerosis drug Tecfidera, which had sales last year of $4 billion. Activist investor J. Kyle Bass had sought to have the dosage-related patent invalidated to enable the emergence of generic versions. The same patent is also the subject of an interference proceeding with a patent owned by Forward Pharma on the drug’s active ingredient, dimethyl fumarate. In January, Biogen paid Forward, a Danish biotech firm, $1.25 billion to defer royalty claims.—ANN THAYER
DRUG DISCOVERY
▸ X-Chem forges two new pacts X-Chem has secured drug discovery pacts with two Japanese firms. In what X-Chem calls a transformative deal, Astellas Pharma will use X-Chem’s DNA-encoded libraries to find lead compounds against tough drug targets. X-Chem scores $16 million upfront, as well as research support and milestone payments throughout the multiyear deal. Separately, Ono Pharmaceutical has teamed with X-Chem to develop drug leads against oncology targets.—LISA JARVIS
▸ Evolva, a Swiss biotech firm making flavor and fragrance chemicals, has secured funding of up to $30 million from private equity firm Yorkville Advisors Global. Separately, Evolva will use Paris-based FCI to market its citrus ingredients nootkatone and valencene. ▸ BASF has inked a global licensing deal for CRISPR-Cas9 genome-editing technology from the Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard to improve products used in agriculture and industrial microbiology. BASF says CRISPR is faster and less expensive than other editing methods.
▸ Thermo Fisher Scientific will locate a CryoHub facility adjacent to the Cell & Gene Therapy Catapult manufacturing center under construction in Stevenage, England. The facility will provide cryogenic storage, distribution, and logistics services. ▸ Alexion Pharmaceuticals will pay $7.5 million for rights to use Arbutus Biopharma’s lipid nanoparticle technology to deliver a messenger RNA to a rare disease drug target. Arbutus says it continues to develop cures for hepatitis B virus while licensing out its drug delivery platform.
MARCH 27, 2017 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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