PETROCHEMICALS
▸ Exxon, SABIC pick site for cracker ExxonMobil and Saudi Basic Industries Corp. have selected San Patricio County, Texas, near Corpus Christi, as the site for a planned ethylene cracker joint venture. The complex is expected to have 1.8 million metric tons per year of ethylene capacity and downstream polyethylene and ethylene glycol plants. The companies also considered sites in Louisiana and elsewhere in Texas. The San Patricio County location was supported by local officials but opposed by many residents weary of the oil and gas projects in the region. The partners will make a final investment decision after they receive environmental permits.—
ALEX TULLO
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
Chemical deals plummet Chemical industry merger and acquisition activity fell sharply in the first quarter, according to a new analysis by the consulting firm PwC. The total value of announced deals was $19.8 billion, down 57% from the previous quarter and 67% from the first quarter of 2016. DuPont’s swap of its crop protection chemicals business for FMC’s health and nutrition business accounted for a large part of the value. Twenty-eight deals were announced in the quarter, down 22% from the previous quarter but up 45% from the year-ago quarter. Deals involving industry investors accounted for 65% of the value, according to PwC; financial investors, such as private equity firms, made up the rest. Companies from Asia and Oceania were the biggest targets in the quarter. Companies in North America were the biggest acquirers.—MICHAEL MCCOY
SAFETY
▸ Automated terminal starts in Singapore
SPECIALTY CHEMICALS
▸ Milliken acquires Keystone Aniline
LTH Logistics has opened a highly automated liquid-chemical-handling facility in
European Union, is establishing a foothold in North America with the acquisition of a Bayer plant in Pointe-Claire, Quebec. The facility makes liquid-, semisolid-, and solid-dosage-form drugs and employs about 150 people. Last year, Famar acquired a Roche dosage-form drug plant in Spain.—
RICK MULLIN
BIOLOGICS Milliken, a maker of textiles, chemicals, and floor coverings, has acquired the dyes and pigments producer Keystone Aniline for an undisclosed sum. Both firms are privately held and family owned. Keystone is almost 100 years old; Milliken is more than 150. A pigment dispersions plant in Inman, S.C., became Keystone’s largest site last year after a 3,300-m2 expansion. Also, last year Keystone acquired England’s Colour Synthesis Solutions.—
MICHAEL MCCOY
LTH’s facility can handle containers without direct human contact.
FOSSIL FUELS
Singapore. An operator sitting in a control room runs the facility, which is fitted with overhead cranes made by the Finnish firm Konecranes. Equipment can load and unload containers of chemicals without direct human intervention. Sensors position the tanks and detect any swaying of the contents during handling. The facility is the first of its kind in Asia, Konecranes claims.—JEAN-FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
▸ Canadian oil-field chemical business sold CREDIT: LTH LOGISTICS (CRANE); FUJIFILM (LAB)
▸ Fujifilm grows biomanufacturing
Canada’s Secure Energy Services is buying Canadian oil-field chemical operations from an undisclosed U.S. company for $22 million. The assets are likely from Lubrizol, which in March announced it was winding down its oil-field chemical operations, obtained mostly from the 2014 purchase of Weatherford International. As part of its exit, Lubrizol said it was exploring the sale of its Canadian unit. Secure Energy is getting a plant in Red Deer, Alberta, and labs in Edmonton, Alberta. Both are locations where Lubrizol operated facilities. Lubrizol won’t confirm if it is the seller.—ALEX TULLO
Fujifilm will invest $37 million to expand its biomanufacturing business in the U.S. and the U.K. In the U.S., Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies will spend $28 million on mammalian cell bioreactors at a recently opened facility in College Station, Texas. Construction of the $92 million plant was partly financed by the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research & Development Authority. In Billingham, England, Fujifilm Diosynth will spend $9 million to expand process development capabilities. Fujifilm acquired the Tex-
Fujifilm will install a Tecan liquidhandling robot at its Billingham facility.
OUTSOURCING
▸ Famar buys Bayer plant in Quebec Famar Health Care Services, a Greek custom manufacturer with 11 facilities in the APRIL 24, 2017 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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Business Concentrates as facility in 2014 and the Billingham plant in 2011.—JEAN-FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
BIOTECHNOLOGY
▸ Troubled Nivalis to merge with Alpine Privately held Alpine Immune Sciences will merge with publicly traded Nivalis Therapeutics in an all-stock deal. In advance of the deal closing, three venture capital firms—Frazier Healthcare Partners, Alpine BioVentures, and OrbiMed Advisors—will put $17 million into Alpine. The combined company will retain Alpine’s name and have nearly $90 million in cash. Nivalis has been winding down R&D after the failure in November of a Phase II trial of its cystic fibrosis treatment cavosonstat. Alpine uses directed evolution to create protein-based therapies that can modulate immune response.—LISA JARVIS
START-UPS
▸ Breakout Labs funds four firms Breakout Labs has invested in four early-stage human health companies. Envisagenics is a bioinformatics spin-off from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory that ana-
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lyzes transcriptomic data to discover genes affected by splicing errors in cancer and genetic diseases. Gel4Med, out of the Harvard Innovation Lab, engineers biomaterials for tissue healing. LogicInk makes temporary tattoos that convey health information through changes in shape and color. And SciBac targets antibiotic-resistant diseases while fortifying the microbiome. Breakout Labs, the Thiel Foundation’s seed fund, has backed 34 firms since 2012.—ANN THAYER
DRUG DEVELOPMENT
▸ Lilly, Incyte reel from FDA rejection In a surprise move, FDA has rejected the arthritis treatment baricitinib, developed by Eli Lilly & Co. and Incyte. Shares of Lilly O S O and Incyte were down 5% and 11%, respecN tively, on the first day of trading after the news was announced. NC N N In a response letter, FDA asked the companies for more clinical N and safety data on baricitinib, a once-daily N N oral JAK inhibitor. The H extra data could take Baricitinib the companies a year or more to supply, delaying the launch of what was anticipated to be a multi-billiondollar-per-year drug.—LISA JARVIS
NANOMEDICINES
▸ Novartis licenses diabetes treatment Novartis has licensed rights to a type 1 diabetes drug being developed by Parvus Therapeutics, which makes nanomedicines to halt or reverse autoimmune diseases. Parvus’s diabetes products, called T1D Navacims, are formed by conjugating iron oxide nanoparticles with copies of a peptide derived from a pancreatic autoantigen. Navacims reprogram pathogenic T cells into beneficial cells that suppress autoimmune-disease-causing immune cells.—MICHAEL MCCOY
GENE THERAPY
▸ CRISPR, Casebia link with StrideBio CRISPR Therapeutics and Casebia Therapeutics are working with StrideBio to find adeno-associated viral (AAV) vectors for in vivo CRISPR/Cas9-based therapies. Casebia is a joint venture between CRISPR Therapeutics and Bayer. StrideBio will use its structure-guided evolution methods to develop AAV vectors with improved tissue specificity and reduced susceptibility to immune responses. Its technology comes from the work of Aravind Asokan at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Mavis Agbandje-McKenna at the University of Florida.—ANN THAYER
Business Roundup
and pharmaceutical package testing markets.
▸ Indorama will acquire Glanzstoff Group, a Luxembourg-based producer of tire cord materials made from rayon, aramid, nylon 6,6, and polyester. Indorama, the world’s largest producer of polyethylene terephthalate, entered the tire cord market in 2014.
▸ Merck KGaA is leading a European project to develop materials and device architectures for high-performance, hyperfluorescent organic light-emitting diodes for displays and solid-state lighting. The project will receive $4.3 million from the European Union.
▸ WeylChem, a custom manufacturer of chemical intermediates, will spend more than $13 million this year to expand and upgrade its facility in Elgin, S.C. The investment is being spurred by a new, long-term toll manufacturing project, WeylChem says.
▸ Momentive Performance Materials has opened a $3.5 million, 1,900-m2 research center in Charlotte, N.C. There the company will test ingredients for tires, including its NXT silane products for low-rolling-resistance tires.
▸ Ametek will acquire Mocon, a maker of lab and field gas analysis instruments, for $182 million. Mocon, which had 2016 sales of $63 million, will expand Ametek’s gas instrumentation business into the food
▸ Pfizer will work with China’s HitGen to build and screen DNA-encoded small-molecule libraries for use in drug discovery. Pfizer says it will apply its parallel medicinal chemistry expertise to develop the libraries.
C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | APRIL 24, 2017
▸ Cobra Biologics will spend $19 million to expand manufacturing capacity for gene therapy and immunotherapy products in the U.K. and Sweden. The firm expects the investment will create up to 50 jobs, raising its workforce to 135. ▸ Lyndra, a drug delivery technology start-up founded by Robert Langer, has raised $23 million in a series A funding round. The company is developing ultra-long-acting, sustained-release oral-dosage forms of small-molecule and peptide drugs as a means of improving therapeutic efficacy and reducing side effects.
