Business Concentrates BIOBASED CHEMICALS
CONSUMER PRODUCTS
Elementis invests in stopping sweat Who knew that helping stop underarm sweat could be so profitable? The British chemical maker Elementis has agreed to acquire SummitReheis, a leading manufacturer of aluminum-based active ingredients used in antiperspirants, in a deal that values Summit at $360 million. It’s a tidy sum for a business that had sales last year of $134 million and before-tax profits of $28 million. The seller is One Rock Capital, an investment company that acquired U.S.based Summit in 2013 for an undisclosed amount. Under One Rock’s ownership, Summit acquired a similar European business and reopened a plant in Wallkill, N.Y. An Elementis investor presentation provides an education in the antiperspirants business. Europeans, it seems, favor aerosols, whereas Americans like sticks. Aluminum chlorohydrate can be used in both products. Aluminum zirconium chlorohydrex gly is the key ingredient in most stick products but isn’t used in aerosols. Both chemicals work by mixing with sweat to form a gel that plugs sweat glands. Three-quarters of Summit’s sales are in North America and Europe, but Elementis sees growth opportunities in places such as Latin America, where antiperspirants and deodorants are used by 40% of the population, compared with 80% in North America. Elementis will merge Summit with some of its existing products to create a $200 million personal care ingredients business. The company anticipates synergies with its hectorite clays, which are added to aerosols to improve the effectiveness of aluminum chlorohydrate, and with its Rheoluxe polymeric rheology modifiers.—MICHAEL MCCOY
Avantium eyes $100 million IPO Avantium, a 2000 spin-off from Shell with technologies for converting plant sugars into biochemicals and polymers, says it will make an initial public offering of shares on two European stock exchanges by the end of March. The firm hopes to raise a little more than $100 million. It is an unusual move. Biobased chemical companies have shied away from stock offerings in recent years because biomaterial prices have been suppressed by the low price of crude oil. Avantium says it will invest up to $80 million of the money it raises in its Synvina joint venture with BASF. The venture plans a 50,000-metric-ton-per-year plant for 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid, a sugar-derived intermediate for recyclable polyesters such as polyethylene furanoate (PEF). The facility will be located at BASF’s site in Antwerp, Belgium. BASF will put up the rest of the money for the plant, which is expected to cost up to O O about $300 million. Construction of the plant O HO OH will create global interest from big companies that are seeking 2,5-Furandicarboxylic biobased materials, Avantium acid says. The firm already has collaborations with Coca-Cola and Danone to develop PEF as a biobased alternative to polyethylene terephthalate in beverage bottles. Most of the rest of the IPO proceeds will be used to build pilot plants for making ethylene glycol from glucose and generating high-purity glucose from nonfood biomass. Separately, Avantium has teamed up with AkzoNobel and other partners to develop a wood-to-chemicals biorefinery in the Netherlands.—ALEX SCOTT
START-UPS
CREDIT: LINDA WANG/C&EN
Jecure launches to tackle liver disease Versant Ventures is putting $20 million into Jecure Therapeutics, a San Diego-based biotech tapping into industry fervor over nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. With its first major round of venture funding, Jecure hopes to generate a pipeline of small molecules to treat the liver disease. Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH, is a serious disease marked by fat accumulation, cellular inflammation, and scarring in the liver. Although it is expected to become the leading cause of liver transplants in the U.S. by 2020, no treatments are yet available for the disease. That giant patient population and wideopen opportunity have led to a buying
frenzy among large companies such as Allergan and Gilead Sciences hoping to establish leading positions in the field. The clinical landscape is dominated by compounds repurposed from other indications, says Jecure CEO Jeffrey Stafford. Although those drugs could help patients with NASH in the near term, Stafford says, Jecure is focused on novel targets emerging from the labs of its scientific founder, gastroenterologist Ariel Feldstein of the University of California, San Diego. Feldstein has spent two decades developing animal models and cell-based assays that allow high-throughput testing of compounds. His discovery platform has allowed
Jecure scientists to find small molecules that can, in a tissue-specific manner, switch on or off the inflammatory component in NASH. Jecure, named after the Latin word for “liver,” expects to ask FDA later this year for permission to start human trials of its first drug candidate. With a second candidate close behind and a goal of establishing a pipeline of therapies, Jecure expects to expand its small staff to about 25 researchers. Jecure reunites Stafford and James Veal, biotech entrepreneurs who previously started another Versant-backed firm, Quanticel Pharmaceuticals. Celgene bought that cancer-focused company in 2015.—LISA
JARVIS FEBRUARY 20, 2017 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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