Business Concentrates BUSINESS
▸ Grace buys dental silica businesses W.R. Grace has signed a definitive agreement to acquire dental silica businesses from Evonik Industries. The European Commission required Evonik to sell the businesses as a condition for approving the firm’s just completed $630 million purchase of J.M. Huber Corp.’s specialty silica operations. Set to close on Sept. 5, Grace’s deal brings a license to produce and sell Evonik’s Sident dental precipitated silica and Huber’s defoamer and anticaking agents. Grace says the transaction will strengthen its sales to toothpaste makers.—MARC REISCH
AGRICULTURE
▸ Digital tools drive crop deals Advances in software and data tools are prompting several deals along the agriculture supply chain. Dow AgroSciences has expanded its collaboration with the synthetic biology software start-up TeselaGen and will use TeselaGen’s technology to power industrial-scale plant cloning. Cargill and other venture capital investors have put a total of $30 million in Descartes Labs, a manager of satellite data for forecasting crop yields and analyzing supply chains. And Bayer will donate plant data from 70 countries to the Swedish nonprofit Quantified Planet, which will make them available to scientists researching biodiversity and climate change.—MELODY BOMGARDNER
ELECTRONIC MATERIALS
▸ Sumitomo plans big China investment Sumitomo Chemical will spend $150 million to build an electronic materials plant in Changzhou, Jiangsu, China. The city’s announcement about the plant did not specify when it will open but noted that it will produce “high-purity reagents” for semiconductor manufacturers in eastern China. The Chinese government is implementing a development plan for the country’s semiconductor industry
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C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | SEPTEMBER 4, 2017
Platform will split in two Platform Specialty Products, the chemical company assembled with much fanfare by investor Martin Franklin beginning in 2013, is splitting into two separate firms: one based on agricultural chemicals and another on specialty chemicals. Franklin, who built Platform with more than $9.4 billion in private equity money, now acknowledges that the firm’s diverse product line is “an impediment to investors’ full appreciation” of its value. His original vision was to build “a portfolio of best-in-class ‘asset-light, high-touch’ businesses.” Platform’s specialty chemical business consists of several assets, the main one being MacDermid Performance Solutions, which Platform acquired for $1.8 billion. Its agriculture operations consist mainly of the off-patent agricultural chemical firm Arysta, acquired for $3.5 billion. Industry reports say Platform decided on the split after it failed to sell the ag operations in early August. Platform says the split should occur sometime in 2018.—MARC REISCH
that involves billions of dollars in investment by Chinese and foreign companies.—JEAN-FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
CONSUMER PRODUCTS
▸ BASF, partner rethink the bicycle seat BASF and the German bicycle parts company Ergon have teamed up to create a new bicycle seat, which they say hasn’t
ees, from 178, to focus on commercializing its fermentation-derived food ingredients and increasing sales. The company makes food and nutraceutical ingredients including resveratrol, stevia, and vanillin via fermentation with modified microbes. Evolva named a new CEO in July; three other executives will step down by the end of the year. Evolva will also consolidate research activities at its headquarters in Reinach.—MELODY BOMGARDNER
MODELING
▸ Cosmetic testing firm sets up in U.S. Genoskin, a French provider of human skin tissue used as an alternative to animal testing, has opened a U.S. office in Boston and is raising funds
An exploded view of Ergon’s new bicycle seat. changed substantially since the 1960s. With the help of a BASF thermoplastic polyurethane, Ergon was able to move away from the standard construction of rails, seat shell, padding, and cover. Comfort and pedaling ergonomics are improved, the firms say.—MICHAEL MCCOY
FOOD INGREDIENTS
▸ Evolva restructures as part of sales drive The Swiss industrial biotech firm Evolva will reduce its workforce to 100 employ-
Genoskin human-skin testing wells. to set up a U.S. production unit next year. Drug, cosmetic, and chemical companies doing toxicological studies use the firm’s skin models, which are
CR E DI T: BAS F (S EAT ); G E N O SK I N (W E L LS)
INVESTMENT
based on tissue harvested from plastic surgery patients. Genoskin is a spin-off from the French National Center for Scientific Research and Paul Sabatier University.—MARC REISCH
GREEN CHEMISTRY
▸ BASF works on CO2 to methanol
facilities in the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. The new company is backed by the investment firm Gilde Healthcare and the pension fund service provider PGGM. It plans further expansion through acquisition and organic growth. “The pharmaceutical industry is demanding a huge bandwidth of highly complex chemistry solutions,” says Syncom CEO Ton Vries.—
RICK MULLIN
BIOLOGICS BASF and Germany’s BSE Engineering will work together on converting carbon dioxide and excess electricity into methanol. BSE is developing a process to generate hydrogen through electrolysis of water. In a second step, BASF catalysts will convert CO2 and hydrogen into methanol. Facilities will be located next to major sources of CO2 emissions, such as power plants. BSE says it has been developing its technology for the past four years and that construction of the first plants will start soon.—ALEX SCOTT
▸ Big pharma partners sign Parkinson’s pact
OUTSOURCING
MCCOY
▸ CROs Mercachem, Syncom to merge The Dutch pharmaceutical contract research organizations (CROs) Mercachem and Syncom have merged to form Mercachem-Syncom, which has 300 employees—250 of whom are chemists—at
AstraZeneca and Takeda Pharmaceutical are joining to develop MEDI1341, an antibody from AstraZeneca intended to treat Parkinson’s disease. MEDI1341 binds to and inhibits α-synuclein, a protein that accumulates in the nerve cells of people with Parkinson’s. Takeda will pay AstraZeneca up to $400 million. AstraZeneca will lead Phase I clinical trials, which are set to start later this year.—MICHAEL
BIOLOGICS
▸ Merck KGaA buys chromatography firm Merck KGaA has acquired Natrix Separations, an Ontario-based producer of hy-
Business Roundup
C R E D I T: ME RC K KGA A
▸ Eastman Chemical will expand capacity for cyclohexanedimethanol (CHDM), a polyester resin modifier, by 15,000 metric tons per year at its plant in Kingsport, Tenn. Eastman says the 18-month project will help meet growing demand for products such as its Tritan copolyester. ▸ Dow Chemical plans to acquire an additional 15% in the petrochemical maker Sadara Chemical from its partner Saudi Aramco, making the firms equal shareholders. The deal will occur after Dow-
A Natrix hydrogel membrane.
DuPont spins off its materials company in about 18 months. ▸ Shin-Etsu Chemical will invest $22 million to expand silicones capacity at its plant in Akron, Ohio. Since 2014, the Japanese company has also expanded capacity in Thailand and Japan, built a silicones R&D center in Japan, and opened a silicones support center in New Jersey. ▸ Merck KGaA and partners in the electronics industry have set up an incubator lab for start-up electronics companies in Yavne, Israel. The
drogel membrane products for single-use chromatography. Natrix markets both anion- and cation-exchange membranes and also is developing products to enable single-use biologic drug purification. Merck says Natrix’s technology will increase efficiency and reduce processing time for customers making monoclonal antibodies and vaccines.—ALEX SCOTT
DRUG DISCOVERY
▸ Celgene and Forma extend discovery pact Celgene will put another $195 million into Forma Therapeutics to expand their small-molecule drug discovery partnership to include targets in the areas of protein homeostasis, inflammation,immunology, and neurodegeneration. Forma is based in Watertown, Mass., with chemistry operations in Branford, Conn. The two firms established their pact in 2013 and extended it in 2014.—MICHAEL
MCCOY
partners will invest about $25 million in the project, called PMatX. It will run for an initial period of three years. ▸ Frutarom Industries has acquired 9% of Enzymotec for $24 million, bringing its holdings in the maker of lipid active ingredients to 19%. Frutarom now plans to make a tender offer to buy the remaining 81% of Enzymotec from shareholders. ▸ Lonza’s drug product services arm will expand its facility in Basel for services including formulation development, drug product analytics, and quality control. The
expansion will create 50 new positions. ▸ ImmunoGen has sold Jazz Pharmaceuticals the right to opt into commercialization of two hematology-related antibody-drug conjugates. ImmunoGen will get $75 million up front and up to $100 million in other payments. ▸ AstraZeneca and Berg, a drug discovery informatics firm, will work together to identify targets and therapies for neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease. Boston-based Berg applies probability-based algorithms to patient genotypes and phenotypes.
SEPTEMBER 4, 2017 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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