BUSINESS CONCENTRATES
MEADWESTVACO TO SPIN OFF CHEMICALS
NEW DRUG APPROVALS SOAR
Under pressure from an activist investor, packaging maker MeadWestvaco will spin off its specialty chemical operations to shareholders by the end of 2015. The specialty operations make activated carbon as well as asphalt paving, pine, and oil-field chemicals. The business had revenues of $980 million in 2013 and ranks 43rd on C&EN’s list of the Top 50 U.S. chemical firms. The separation will create two companies better positioned to grow in their targeted markets, MWV Chairman John A. Luke Jr. says. MWV will continue to focus on its $4.4 billion packaging operation. Luke had some help coming to that conclusion. Back in June, activist investor fund Starboard Value urged Luke to “explore a separation” of the firm’s noncore assets.—MSR
In an encouraging sign of the health of the pharmaceutical industry, new drug approvals soared to an 18-year high in 2014. The Food & Drug Administration gave the green light to 41 new molecular entities last year, up from 27 in 2013. In years past, a surge in new approvals often meant a flood of “me-too” drugs had made it onto the market. But the 2014 class of new drugs is ripe with innovation: The list includes 16 first-in-class treatments, compared with just nine drugs with a novel mechanism of action approved in 2013. Last year was the best year ever for rare disease drug approvals, FDA said, with orphan drugs accounting for roughly 40% of the new drugs approved. Other highlights were 12 new treatments for infectious diseases, including four much-needed new antibiotics. And eight new cancer drugs hit the market, a crop that included several immunotherapies that represent major advances for patients. FDA crammed seven of those new drug approvals into the last month of the year.—LJ
SABIC FORMS NANOTUBE VENTURE
WIKIPEDIA
SABIC and Molecular Rebar Design, a carbon nanotube specialist based in Austin, Texas, have agreed to form a nanomate-
charged that Dow Chemical’s Rohm and Haas subsidiary dumped chemicals that caused residents of McCullom Lake, Ill., to develop brain tumors. Settlement details were not revealed. The on-again-offagain suit, dating back to 2006, charged that Rohm and Haas dumped trichloroethylene and vinyl chloride in a lagoon beside a now-shuttered specialty chemical plant.—MSR
SOUTH KOREA’S OCI BUILDS COAL TAR REFINERY
Close-up of entangled rial joint venture carbon nanotubes. called Black Diamond Structures. The joint venture plans to commercialize unentangled nanotubes developed at Molecular Rebar, which was founded by former Dow Chemical scientists, for energy storage, consumer electronics, and other applications.—MSR
BRAIN CANCER SUIT SETTLED A Pennsylvania state court judge has approved the settlement of a suit which
South Korean chemical producer OCI and Maanshan Iron & Steel will build a 350,000-metric-ton-per-year coal tar refinery in Maanshan, Anhui province, China. OCI will own 60% of the plant and Maanshan, 40%. The refinery will process coal tar to produce pitch, carbon black oil, and naphthalene for export. In 2008, OCI opened another coal tar refinery in Shandong, China.—JFT
SUIT ACCUSES REVLON OF SAFETY LAPSES Alan Meyers, former chief science officer of cosmetics firm Revlon, has claimed in a lawsuit that he was fired for pointing out—and working to fix—safety and compliance problems at newly acquired laboratories. Meyers alleges that he found several problems in labs at Colomer, a Spanish cosmetics firm that Revlon acCEN.ACS.ORG
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quired in 2013, including raw materials that did not meet safety standards, a lack of adequate testing equipment, and no toxicologists. He also alleges that Revlon’s CEO, Lorenzo Delpani, was hostile toward him because Meyers was born in the U.S. and is Jewish. Delpani was previously the CEO of Colomer. Revlon says the suit is “completely meritless” and that Meyers’s employment ended because of poor performance.—MMB
DUPONT DIVESTS TWO DRUG PROPELLANTS In advance of the spin-off of its performance chemicals business, DuPont has divested two lines of propellants used to deliver drugs. DuPont sold its Dymel brand of pharmaceutical-grade hydrofluorocarbon (HFC)-134a to India’s SRF. The $20 million deal includes know-how so that SRF can set up its own plant. SRF already manufactures technical-grade HFC-134a. Meanwhile, Mexico’s Mexichem, also an HFC-134a maker, has acquired DuPont’s business in pharmaceutical-grade HFC-227ea/P for $4.1 million.—MM
GILEAD ACQUIRES PHENEX PROGRAM Gilead Sciences is acquiring a liver disease drug development program from the privately held German company Phenex Pharmaceuticals. Gilead will pay up to
BUSINESS CONCENTRATES
NESTLÉ INVESTS IN MICROBIOME FIRM The health science subsidiary of the food giant Nestlé has invested $65 million in Seres Health, a Cambridge, Mass.-based firm that is developing biological drugs designed to treat disease by restoring a malfunctioning microbiome. Seres recently raised $48 million from other investors. Seres says it will use the funds to move its lead product, SER-109, into Phase III clinical trials for preventing the recurrence of Clostridium difficile infection.—MM
23ANDME ALLIES WITH GENENTECH Genentech has reached an agreement with 23andMe to generate whole-genome sequencing data from 3,000 volunteers with Parkinson’s disease. The two hope to discover new therapeutic targets for treating the nervous system disorder. 23andMe says it will also be able to share the genetic information generated through the project with other researchers. A year
BUSINESS ROUNDUP TORAY Industries will double its capacity for spunbond polypropylene fiber to 37,000 metric tons per year at its plant in Tangerang, Indonesia. The material is mostly used for top sheets in disposable diapers. SHANGHAI Pret Composites, a Chinese plastics compounder, has agreed to buy Wellman Plastics Recycling for $70 million. The business, which primarily recycles nylon at its plant in Johnsonville,
ago, FDA ordered 23andMe to stop selling its direct-to-consumer genome test kits without the agency’s approval.—MSR
AMGEN, KITE PHARMA TEAM UP ON CANCER Amgen and immunotherapy specialist Kite Pharma are joining to develop and commercialize novel chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell immunotherapies based on Kite’s engineered autologous cell therapy platform and Amgen’s cancer targets. Kite will receive $60 million up front and is eligible for up to $525 million in milestone payments. Amgen could also receive the same amount in milestone payments from Kite.—RM
development, regulatory, and commercialization aspects.—AMT
BRISTOL-MYERS, CALIBR IN FIBROSIS PACT To further expand its portfolio of antifibrotic drugs, Bristol-Myers Squibb has teamed with California Institute for Biomedical Research (Calibr) to develop
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$470 million for Phenex’s small-molecule farnesoid X receptor (FXR) agonists. FXR is a nuclear hormone receptor that regulates bile acid, lipid, and glucose homeostasis, which can help reduce liver steatosis and inflammation and may help prevent liver fibrosis.—AMT
ISIS PHARMA INKS RNA DEAL WITH J&J Isis Pharmaceuticals will work with Janssen Biotech, part of Johnson & Johnson, to develop RNA-targeted drugs against autoimmune disorders of the gastrointestinal tract. Janssen has expertise in formulating drugs that can be delivered to targets in the gut. J&J will pay Isis $35 million up front. The agreement covers three programs for which Isis could receive another $800 million in license fees and milestone payments. If Janssen licenses promising drug candidates, it will handle the
S.C., was sold to a group of private investors in 2008 following the bankruptcy proceedings of fiber producer Wellman Inc. DSM has agreed to sell Euroresins, a distributor of products for the composite resins industry, to Cathay Investments, a U.K.-based chemical distribution and trading firm, for an undisclosed fee. Euroresins has sales of about $107 million and 70 staffers. RELIANCE Industries has contracted with the Japanese shipping firm
Mitsui OSK Lines for the operation of six ships to transport ethane. By the end of 2016, the Indian chemical maker aims to import 1.5 million metric tons per year of U.S. ethane for use in its Indian ethylene crackers. VTESSE, a rare disease company focused on developing drugs for Niemann-Pick disease type C (NPC), has launched with $25 million in funding. NIH has licensed to Vtesse the rights to cyclodextrin δ-tocopherol and its derivatives for the treat-
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Scientists in small molecules Calibr’s highthat can stop or throughput slow the progresscreening facility. sion of fibrotic disease. BMS gains the rights to any preclinical antifibrotic compounds discovered by Calibr, a La Jolla-based nonprofit focused on translational science.—LJ
ment of NPC. Vtesse is the first spin-off from the Pfizer-backed orphan drug accelerator Cydan Development. NOVARTIS’S biosimilar drug filgrastim has been recommended for approval by FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee. If FDA accepts the recommendation, the drug would be the first biosimilar approved for sale in the U.S. PFIZER has acquired a controlling interest in Redvax, a spin-off of the Swiss biopharmaceutical
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company Redbiotec. The purchase will give Pfizer access to a preclinical human cytomegalovirus (CMV) vaccine candidate and technology related to a second, undisclosed, vaccine program. CYTOMX Therapeutics, a biotechnology company developing antibody-based therapies for cancer, has raised $20 million in its latest round of financing. Pfizer Venture Investments led the round, which included Roche Venture Fund, Third Rock Ventures, and Canaan Partners.
