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
