Business Concentrates PETROCHEMICALS
▸ Home Depot sues TiO2 makers Home Depot is suing four makers of titanium dioxide in federal court to recover the high cost of paint between 2002 and 2011. The retailer alleges that DuPont, Huntsman International, Kronos Worldwide, and Millennium Inorganic Chemicals colluded to increase prices for the widely used white pigment, thus significantly raising the retailer’s cost for architectural paint. In 2013, TiO2 makers paid multi-million dollar settlements to paint makers because of price-fixing claims. Saudi Arabia’s Cristal bought Millennium back in 2007, and DuPont spun off its TiO2 business as Chemours a year ago.—MARC REISCH
ENERGY STORAGE
▸ Albemarle acquires Chinese lithium firm Albemarle has signed a deal to acquire the lithium salts business of Jiangli New Materials, a Chinese company that toll-manufactures for Albemarle based on spodumene mineral raw material that Albemarle supplies. Jiangli has the capacity to produce 15,000 metric tons per year of lithium hydroxide and carbonate, both used in lithium-ion batteries. Albemarle is also expanding lithium chemicals output in Chile.—MICHAEL MCCOY
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
▸ Chemical engineer fined $4 million A federal judge has ordered Mattias Tezock, a chemical engineer, to pay $4 million to his former employer, Voltaix, for stealing trade secrets. Voltaix is owned by Air Liquide. Tezock admitted to using the proprietary data to set up a competing business, Metaloid Precursors, to make high-purity germane (GeH4), used in semiconductors and solar cells. As part of a plea agreement, Tezock also must close his business and destroy the germane processing plant he built with financial partners. As a condition of his five-year probation, Tezock is prohibited from working with
14
C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | AUGUST 29, 2016
Sasol confirms escalating costs South African oil and chemicals maker Sasol has issued a final report confirming earlier findings, released last June, that Construction of Sasol the costs to build its Lake Charles ChemLouisiana project. ical Project in Louisiana have increased $2.1 billion versus previous estimates. The petrochemical complex, more than 50% complete and now expected to cost $11 billion, will feature an ethylene cracker, as well as polyethylene, ethylene oxide/ethylene glycol, and other chemical derivatives plants. The company reviewed some 60,000 line items related to the construction. The reasons behind the increase include additional groundwork needed because of poor sub-surface conditions, increases in construction costs because of higher wages, and larger-than-expected materials purchases. However, the company still expects to commission the facility beginning in 2018.—ALEX TULLO
germane gas or other specialty chemicals.—MARC REISCH
POLYMERS
▸ DuPont and Teijin revamp films ventures
winding down the PHA business to focus on its Yield10 Bioscience crop technology. Earlier in the year, CJ and Metabolix announced they were considering the construction of a 10,000-metric-ton-per-year PHA plant at CJ’s Fort Dodge, Iowa, facility, where the firm already makes lysine.—ALEX TULLO
EMPLOYMENT Teijin is buying out DuPont in two of the seven polyester films joint ventures the two firms have operated around the world since 2000. Teijin says the two ventures, in Japan and Indonesia, have been affected by a slowdown in the Chinese economy and the rise of new Chinese competitors. After the transaction is complete, the Japanese firm intends to improve the operations’ competitiveness by making films out of materials other than polyester and seeking out external alliances.—MICHAEL
MCCOY
BIOBASED CHEMICALS
▸ Metabolix selling PHA business Woburn, Mass.-based polyhydroxyalkanoate polymer maker Metabolix has agreed to sell its core PHA business to South Korea’s CJ CheilJedang for $10 million. The purchase includes intellectual property, platform microbial strains for fermenting PHA, and laboratory facilities. Last month, the company, strapped for cash, said it was
▸ Vertellus plans partial plant closure Vertellus Specialties, which filed for bankruptcy reorganization in late May, plans to partially close its plant in Indianapolis. Between 40 and 50 employees will be affected of the 243 now working at the facility, which makes pyridine and picoline derivatives. The company attributes the closure to declining global demand for agricultural and nutritional products. Pyridine is used to make herbicides such as paraquat and vitamin B-3. Picoline is used to make various agricultural chemicals.—MARC REISCH
INVESTMENT
▸ Lanxess invests in reverse osmosis Lanxess is doubling capacity at its reverse-osmosis membrane plant in Bitterfeld, Germany. Lanxess entered the reverse-osmosis membrane business only five years
CREDIT: SASOL
LITIGATION
ago, and already, the company says, capacity at its plant has nearly sold out. The market for the products, used in water treatment, is growing at a 10% annual rate, the company says. Lanxess expects the new capacity to be on-line during the second half of next year. Over the past five years, Lanxess has invested $45 million in the Bitterfeld reverse-osmosis membrane plant.—ALEX TULLO
ANTIBIOTICS
▸ Pfizer will acquire AstraZeneca business Pfizer has agreed to acquire AstraZeneca’s late-stage small-molecule antibiotics business, primarily outside the U.S., for $725 million and up to $850 million in future payments. The business includes Zavicefta, recently approved in the European Union; the marketed products Merrem and Zinforo; and two products in clinical development. AstraZeneca spun off its antibiotics R&D efforts as Entasis Therapeutics last year.—MICHAEL MCCOY
NEUROSCIENCE
▸ Denali raises big second funding round Denali Therapeutics has pulled in $130 million in its second round of fund-
raising. The company launched in May 2015 with an investment commitment of $217 million, an amount that was called the largest ever for a biotech firm. Denali, which is focused on neurodegenerative disease, was founded by former Genentech scientists. Separately, the company has acquired San Diego-based Incro Pharmaceuticals for access to its RIP1 inhibitor program. It also licensed LRRK2 inhibitors from Genentech and filed to start a clinical trial of a small-molecule RIP1 inhibitor.—
MICHAEL MCCOY
AGRICULTURE
▸ Potash projects hit milestones, setbacks Two companies attempting to break into the Saskatchewan potash fertilizer industry with major multi-billion-dollar projects— K+S and BHP Billiton—report progress but also say that they don’t expect to ramp up production as fast as they first intended. K+S staged the ceremonial commissioning of its 2 million-metric-ton-per-year Legacy mining project near Regina, Saskatchewan. However, the company expects the first metric ton of production out of the facility to come toward the middle of next year, not later this year as originally planned. Billiton’s Jansen, Saskatchewan, project is 60% complete and should have its mine shafts finished as early as 2018. However, the company says it could mothball the
Business Roundup
CREDIT: K+S
▸ Honeywell and Albemarle are ending a hydroprocessing catalyst technology alliance that they formed in 2006. The two firms say they will go their separate ways in providing hydrotreating and other catalysts to oil refiners. ▸ A. Schulman, has appointed Joseph M. Gingo, 71, as CEO. He previously served in that role from 2008 to 2014. After poor financial performance at the company, Bernard Rzepka, 56, stepped down from the top position. ▸ Solvay has completed an
A potash storage facility at K+S’s Legacy mine.
expansion of its Piedmont, S.C., carbon fiber plant, doubling capacity at the facility. The plant’s production has been qualified by airplane maker Boeing and will be used in movable wing flaps and other aerospace applications. ▸ Fusion Coolant Systems, a maker of supercritical carbon dioxide metalworking fluids, has raised $1.25 million from investors. The University of Michigan spin-out will use the funding to advance its technology in the automotive and aerospace sector.
projects at that time if there is still industry overcapacity of the potassium crop nutrient.—ALEX TULLO
DRUG DISCOVERY
▸ Bayer, Crispr joint venture now Casebia Bayer and Crispr Therapeutics have settled on Casebia Therapeutics as the name for their joint venture launched last December. The name derives from the Cas family of nuclease enzymes—key components of the CRISPR gene-editing technology on which the new venture will base its therapeutic programs. Casebia has access to technology from Crispr Therapeutics in specific disease areas, as well as access to protein engineering expertise and relevant disease know-how from Bayer. The venture recently subleased laboratory space in Cambridge, Mass., with room for up to 80 employees.—RICK MULLIN
▸ Orion Engineered Carbons plans to shutter its carbon black plant in Ambès, France, by the end of this year. The facility currently employs 40 people and produces 45,000 metric tons of the tire additive annually. ▸ VUV Analytics, a maker of ultraviolet absorption spectrometry instruments, has raised $6.5 million from investors. The funding will help the firm expand into the laboratory analytical and process control markets. ▸ Regeneron Pharmaceuticals has signed an agreement with the Biomedical Advanced Research & De-
velopment Authority of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) to manufacture and study two antibody therapies for the potential prevention and treatment of Middle East respiratory syndrome. HHS will provide funding to Regeneron of up to $8.9 million. ▸ Cerulean Pharma, a drug development firm specializing in nanoparticle-drug conjugates, says it will reduce its workforce by approximately 48%, to 23 full-time employees, by the end of the year. The company’s lead clinical candidate failed in trials for kidney cancer earlier this year.
AUGUST 29, 2016 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
15
