Business Concentrates POLLUTION
▸ Liveris will stay on longer at DowDuPont Dow Chemical CEO Andrew N. Liveris will stay on for longer than originally anticipated as chairperson of DowDuPont, which is expected to be formed in August through the merger of Dow Chemical and DuPont. He will serve as chairperson through July 1, 2018. He originally was to leave by the middle of this year. However, the deal did not close late last year as originally anticipated. A board has also been named for DowDuPont. It will include 16 directors, eight each from Dow and DuPont. The board will oversee the split, 18 months after the merger closes, of DowDuPont into three separate firms.—ALEX TULLO
AGRICULTURE
▸ Brazil approves DowDuPont deal Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defense has approved Dow Chemical’s merger with DuPont. The regulatory agency is asking for the same concessions the European Commission did. To satisfy these, DuPont is selling a portion of its crop protection unit to FMC, and Dow Chemical plans to divest its ethylene acrylic acid polymer business to South Korea’s SK Global Chemical. In addition, Brazil is asking Dow to sell a portion of its corn seed business in Brazil. The divestment is to include some processing plants, research centers, and Dow’s Brazilian corn germplasm bank. Dow and DuPont expect to complete their merger in August.—ALEX TULLO
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
▸ GCP buys U.K. waterproofing firm
Daikin settles PFOA suit A federal circuit court judge has approved a $5 million payment by Japanese chemical maker Daikin to settle charges that it polluted drinking water in Decatur, Ala. About $4 million will be used to install a system to filter the fluorosurfactants perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) that leached into the Tennessee River from Daikin’s fluoropolymer manufacturing site in Decatur. The remaining funds will be used to pay plaintiff attorney fees and to compensate residents, who were warned not to drink the contaminated water. Also named in the suit are fluorochemicals maker 3M and its Dyneon fluoroelastomer subsidiary, which likewise operate in Decatur. 3M says the claims against it lack merit and that it stopped manufacturing PFOA and PFOS more than a decade ago. In February, Chemours and DuPont agreed to pay $670 million to settle claims that PFOA-contaminated drinking water near Parkersburg, W.Va., sickened residents. Water contaminated with the fluorosurfactants is also under scrutiny near industrial facilities in Hoosick Falls, N.Y.; Gadsden, Ala.; and Dordrecht, the Netherlands.—MARC REISCH
Grace in early 2016, acquired Halex, a maker of moisture barrier flooring membranes, in November.—MARC REISCH
BIOBASED CHEMICALS
▸ Laboratoire M2 raises $4.6 million Sherbrooke, Quebec-based start-up Laboratoire M2 has raised $4.6 million for its Thymox disinfectant technolOH ogy in a second round of venture funding from Cycle Capital Management, Desjardins Innovatech, and others. The company Thymol will use the funds to commercialize its botanical products for use in crop protection, animal health, and cleaning markets. Thymox products are made from thymol, derived from the thyme plant. Laboratoire M2 says the products kill pathogenic microbes without harming tissue or the environment and are biodegradable and nontoxic.—MELODY
BOMGARDNER
AGRICULTURE GCP Applied Technologies has agreed to buy U.K.-based Stirling Lloyd, a supplier of waterproofing membranes and coatings, for $94 million. Stirling Lloyd has $40 million in annual sales. GCP says the acquisition expands its liquid waterproofing and building repair products business and opens up new applications in bridges, tunnels, and parking lots. GCP, which spun off of W.R.
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C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | MAY 22, 2017
▸ Firms pursue feed ingredients Swedish specialty chemical maker Perstorp and biobased chemicals firm Metabolic Explorer each plan to make short-chain fatty acids for the animal feed market. Perstorp
says it will introduce new feed ingredients, called valerins, which are glycerol esters of valeric acid. The firm, working with university and industry researchers, found that valerins help poultry stay healthy when the disease pathogen Clostridium perfringens is present. Separately, Metabolic Explorer says it will build a facility to make the feed additive butyric acid as well as the cosmetic ingredient 1,3-propanediol. It is looking for an industrial partner to help build the first 6,000-metric-ton-per-year plant for the products.—MELODY BOMGARDNER
INVESTMENT
▸ Honeywell starts up refrigerants plant Honeywell has started up a $300 million plant in Geismar, La., to produce the refrigerant that hydrofluoroolefin (HFO)-1234yf has ultralow global warming potential. The automotive refrigerant replaces high-global-warming hydrofluorocarbon (HFC)-134a. Competitor Chemours broke ground in February on a $230 million HFO-1234yf plant in Ingleside, Texas, expected to come on-line at the end of 2018.—MARC REISCH
Honeywell’s new HFO-1234yf plant in Geismar, La.
CREDIT: HONEYWELL
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
DRUG SAFETY
customers in China. Separately, Boehringer announced that it will fund early drug discovery projects at Peking University. Several academic investigators will work closely with the German firm, Boehringer says.—
▸ Indian workers shut lights during FDA inspection
JEAN-FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
FDA warned the drug producer Vikshara Trading & Investments for obstructing an inspection of its plant in Ahmedabad in northwestern India. During the inspection last year, the company allegedly impeded FDA officials by blocking access to the vessel room as well as the packaging and labeling areas. Workers also did not turn on the lights in unlocked parts of the facility. Using a flashlight, FDA officials were, however, able to observe “powder scattered throughout the production areas, including powder caked on the floor.”—JEAN-
FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
PHARMACEUTICALS
▸ Boehringer starts plant, expands China R&D
DRUG DISCOVERY
▸ Vertex and X-Chem form library pact Vertex Pharmaceuticals will pay X-Chem an undisclosed up-front payment as well as milestones as part of a small-molecule drug discovery pact targeting severe, genetic diseases. X-Chem, based in Waltham, Mass., says it will screen Vertex targets against its library of more than 120 billion small molecules tethered to DNA tags that record their synthetic history. Vertex has the option to license leadlike hits. X-Chem already has agreements with AstraZeneca, Bayer, Pfizer, Roche, and other firms.—MICHAEL MCCOY
SPECIALTY CHEMICALS
Boehringer Ingelheim has started up a $78 million biopharmaceutical plant at the Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in Shanghai. The facility, the company claims, is the only biopharmaceutical plant started up in China by a major international producer. Boehringer plans to use the plant to supply monoclonal antibodies and recombinant proteins to its
CREDIT: MERCK KGAA
Merck and FlexEnable will together make novel-shaped displays.
▸ Merck and FlexEnable shape the future Liquid-crystal display materials maker Merck KGaA has teamed up with Cambridge, England-based flexible electronics producer FlexEnable to develop a new generation of LCDs with complex surfaces and shapes.
The displays are set to combine FlexEnable’s organic thin-film transistors with Merck’s polymer-wall organic LCD technology. The organic LCDs the firms are working on have a bend radius that can go below 30 mm.—
ALEX SCOTT
BIOTECHNOLOGY
▸ Synlogic goes public through merger In a bid to take itself public, Synlogic will merge with Mirna Therapeutics, an Austin, Texas-based biotech firm developing microRNA-based cancer treatments. The merged company, to be known as Synlogic, will focus on engineering bacteria found in the human gut to perform a metabolic function. Synlogic expects to put its first treatment, for urea cycle disorders, into the clinic by midyear. Last fall, Mirna shut down development of its lead oncology drug candidate, MRX34, after three patients in its Phase I study died. The company, with shares already listed on NASDAQ, then began pursuing strategic alternatives for its business.—LISA JARVIS
Business Roundup
Fund, and Roche Venture Fund.
studies for the pulmonary drug Aerodone.
▸ Reichhold and Polynt got the go-ahead for their merger from the European Commission, provided Reichhold divests its Étain, France, unsaturated polyester resins plant to a buyer approved by the commission. In April, Reichhold penned a deal to sell the Étain plant to Ashland.
▸ Ashland has completed its separation from oil change firm Valvoline with the final distribution of Valvoline common stock to Ashland shareholders. Ashland says it is now “fully focused” on its specialty chemical operations.
▸ Biogen has paid Remedy Pharmaceuticals $120 million up front for access to Cirara, which is currently in Phase III studies to treat a severe form of ischemic stroke. Remedy’s drug complements Biogen’s treatment natalizumab, now in midstage trials to address acute ischemic stroke.
▸ Covestro will expand by 50% to 600,000 metric tons per year the capacity of its recently-expanded polycarbonate plant in Shanghai. The company will raise capacity not by building new production lines but by upgrading
equipment on the units that are currently operating. ▸ Cargill has acquired BioBased Technologies, a maker of vegetable-based polyols based in Rogers, Ark. The business’s production method will bring to Cargill flexible foam products with high biobased content. ▸ Vivet Therapeutics, a Paris-based biotech start-up, has raised $41.7 million in funding to develop gene therapies for rare, inherited metabolic diseases. Investors include HealthCap, Novartis Venture
▸ Genoa Pharmaceuticals has raised $62 million in its first large round of financing, led by F-Prime Capital Partners and Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners. The funds will support Genoa’s early-stage pipeline of treatments for serious pulmonary diseases and Phase II
▸ Otsuka Pharmaceutical will build its sixth pharmaceutical plant in Japan. Scheduled to come on-line in 2020 in the city of Mima on the southern island of Shikoku, the plant will initially employ 86 people.
MAY 22, 2017 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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