firm Grail to below 20%. Illumina, a gene sequencing equipment maker, made the decision in light of a potential $1 billion investment in Grail by private investors. Illumina, which created Grail in early 2016 with other investors, says Grail will become one of its largest customers. Separately, Illumina has debuted its NovaSeq gene sequencing technology, which it expects to enable $100 whole genome sequencing. With Bio-Rad, it has launched a new system for single-cell analysis. Illumina also has new informatics deals with IBM Watson Health and Philips.—
ANN THAYER
INFECTIOUS DISEASE
▸ Biotech bigs float R&D venture Former Biogen CEO George Scangos is heading a team of drug industry veterans behind Vir Biotechnology, a new company that seeks treatments for infectious disease. The group hopes to employ immune programming to manipulate pathogen-host interactions. Lead investors include Arch Venture Partners and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Arch, whose co-founder Robert Nelsen conceived of Vir, has committed to invest $150 million. Nelsen says he expects Vir to fund academic research, conduct its own R&D, and spend up to $100 million on individual in-licensing deals.—RICK MULLIN
DRUG DISCOVERY
▸ Daiichi shuts Indian R&D center Daiichi Sankyo will close its research unit in Gurgaon, near New Delhi, India. The move will affect 170 people, most of whom are researchers focused on infectious disease and inflammation. Last February, Daiichi closed its R&D center in Gerrards Cross, England, a move that impacted 80 people. The Indian research unit is a legacy from Daiichi’s 2008 acquisition of Ranbaxy Laboratories. When Daiichi Sankyo sold Ranbaxy to Sun Pharmaceutical Industries in 2015, it retained the operation as a separate subsidiary.—JEAN FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
Merck will add more biodevelopment centers like the one here in Martillac, France.
BIOLOGICS
▸ Celgene, Sanofi eye autoimmune disease
▸ Global bioprocessing boost for Merck Merck KGaA is planning to build biologic drug development centers near Boston and Shanghai following the success of a similar center in Martillac, France. The new centers will provide bioprocessing services including cell line development, process development, and non-Good Manufacturing Process (GMP) clinical production. Additionally, Merck will beef up the Martillac center by adding a single-use GMP facility for customers. “We are seeing an increasing
Business Roundup
CREDIT: MERCK
▸ Air Liquide’s Seppic subsidiary has acquired the Serdex botanical active ingredients division of Bayer. Air Liquide says Serdex, which had sales last year of about $8 million, complements BiotechMarine, a botanicals business it acquired in 2013. ▸ Dow Chemical has sold its Safechem business to the private equity firm CBPE Capital for an undisclosed sum. Safechem says it serves more than 7,500 dry cleaning and other customers worldwide with chlorinated solvent management services.
▸ Braskem will sell quantiQ, Brazil’s largest chemical distributor, to the rival distributor GTM for about $170 million. QuantiQ is owned by the private equity firm Advent International. ▸ Baerlocher is adding a third reactor for calcium, zinc, sodium and other metal stearates at its plant in Cincinnati. Metal stearates are added to plastics as acid scavengers, stabilizers, lubricants, water repellants, and release agents. ▸ Toray Industries has formed a joint venture with
global demand for end-to-end process development solutions,” says Udit Batra, CEO of MilliporeSigma, Merck’s life sciences business.—ALEX SCOTT
BIOTECHNOLOGY
At the start of the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco last week (see page 9), Celgene and Sanofi both announced partnerships in autoimmune disease. Celgene is paying privately-held Anokion $45 million up front for access to its antigen engineering technology in a deal that includes an option to purchase the biotech firm. Sanofi, meanwhile, will pay an undisclosed sum for rights to ImmuNext’s INX021, a CD40L antibody in preclinical development with potential to treat a swath of autoimmune diseases. Milestone payments could reach $500 million.—LISA JARVIS
Mitsui Sugar to use water treatment membranes in a new cellulosic sugar production system. The venture will construct a demonstration plant in Thailand that will process 15 metric tons of bagasse per day to produce sugar, polyphenols, and oligosaccharides.
▸ 3M will sell its nickel-manganese-cobalt battery cathode intellectual property to Umicore, a materials technology firm, and will focus on silicon anodes. The firms say the cathode and anode technologies may together substantially increase battery life.
▸ Silence Therapeutics, an RNA-based drug firm in England, has spent $9.6 million for an 8.4% stake in Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals. Like Silence, California-based Arrowhead develops gene-silencing drugs for hard-totreat diseases using a range of RNA chemistries and delivery methods.
▸ Sarepta Therapeutics has licensed a Galgt2 gene therapy program developed by Paul Martin, a researcher at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, for use in developing a Duchenne muscular dystrophy treatment. Sarepta’s DMD drug eteplirsen won FDA approval last year.
JANUARY 16, 2017 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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