SPECIALTY CHEMICALS
▸ Avantor to merge with NuSil Avantor Performance Materials and NuSil Technology, both majority-owned by the investment firm New Mountain Capital, plan to merge into a new company with annual sales of more than $700 million. Avantor makes high-purity chemicals for laboratory and other applications. NuSil produces medical- and space-grade silicones. New Mountain Managing Director Matthew Holt says the combined company will have strong positions in bioprocessing and biomaterials and will increase sales by 14% annually. New Mountain bought into Avantor in 2010 and NuSil in 2011.—MICHAEL MCCOY
BIOBASED CHEMICALS
▸ BioAmber hits targets for succinic acid BioAmber and Mitsui & Co. say their joint-venture biobased succinic acid plant in Sarnia, Ontario, has hit operational mile-
CREDIT: BIOAMBER; NORSK TITANIUM
A view inside stones set out in grants BioAmber’s and loans from Canadian succinic acid government agencies. facility in BioAmber says the plant, Ontario. which opened in August 2015, is making succinic acid at variable costs competitive with the petrochemical version. In the second quarter, the firm sold $2.5 million worth of succinic acid.—MICHAEL MCCOY
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
▸ IGM buys BASF’s photoinitiator line BASF has sold its photoinitiators business to IGM Resins, a supplier of radiation-curable materials owned by the private equity firm
AGRICULTURE
Fertilizer firms talk merger Canada’s two largest fertilizer makers, Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan and Agrium, say they are negotiating a potential merger of equals. The two firms caution that the “preliminary discussions” won’t necessarily yield a transaction. PotashCorp had $6.3 billion in sales in 2015. It is the world’s largest producer of potash, with about 20% of global capacity, and a sizable maker of nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers. In fact, it derives a majority of its sales from those products. Agrium also manufactures the three main fertilizers. However, more than 80% of its $14.8 billion in sales last year came from its retail outlets. It operates more than 1,200 of them in North America alone. PotashCorp has been on the hunt for a major deal. Last year, Germany’s K+S rejected an $8.7 billion unsolicited takeover offer from the Canadian firm.—ALEX TULLO
Arsenal Capital Partners. The deal, which affects about 120 BASF employees globally, includes a production site in Mortara, Italy. BASF says the sale will allow it to focus on radiation curable resins and additives for coatings, inks, and adhesives. BASF will retain a portfolio of “strategic” photoinitiators used in electronics.—MARC REISCH
RESEARCH FUNDING
▸ Tata to fund R&D at top schools Companies in India’s Tata Group are giving a total of more than $25 million to top research institutions in the U.S., U.K., and India to fund long-term projects. Tata companies have set up a six-year partnership with Harvard Univeristy for research in soft robotics, advanced materials, sensors, and other areas. Tata companies have also agreed to collaborate and fund research at Yale; the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras; and the U.K.’s Royal Society. Tata says the research will support its ambition “to touch the lives of 25% of the world’s population.”—JEAN-FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
3-D PRINTING
▸ Titanium printing comes to New York Norway’s Norsk Titanium will soon install the first of 20 Rapid Plasma Deposition (RPD) machines at what it says will be the world’s first large metal-based additive manufacturing plant, in Plattsburgh, N.Y. Equipped with argon-cooled plasma torches, the RPD machines will convert titanium
wire into aerospace Norsk Titanium components that says its additive cost 50 to 75% manufacturing less than forged process is cheaper parts, says Norsk than forging. Titanium, which is investing $875 million in the project. New York State is kicking in $125 million and expects the project to create nearly 400 jobs.—MARC REISCH
ENERGY STORAGE
▸ Battery startup NOHMs raises venture capital NOHMs Technologies has raised $5 million in a second round of financing from investors including Solvay Ventures, Phoenix Venture Partners, and the New York State Innovation Venture Capital Fund. A spinoff of Cornell University and one of C&EN’s 10 Start-Ups to Watch in 2015, NOHMs is developing ionic-liquid-based electrolytes that it says can reduce the incidence of electric-vehicle battery fires. The firm’s earlier funding came from Small Business Innovation Research grants and the U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium.—MICHAEL MCCOY SEPTEMBER 5, 2016 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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Business Concentrates of its immuno-oncology antibodies. A week earlier, the regenerative medicine firm BioCardia agreed to do a reverse merger with Tiger X Medical. And PixarBio, a pain management company cofounded by MIT professor Robert Langer, is in the process of reverse merging with an undisclosed public firm.—ANN THAYER
▸ Start-up Arcus raises $120 million The chemist founders of Flexus Biosciences—which Bristol-Myers Squibb acquired last year for up to $1.25 billion—have started a new company called Arcus Biosciences. Coming out of so-called stealth mode, Arcus disclosed that it has raised $120 million in venture capital funding. The company’s first three compounds are small molecules intended to disrupt enzymatic conversion of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), released by dying cells, into adenosine. Whereas ATP is a signal to the immune system to respond to cancer, adenosine tells the immune system to stand down. CEO Terry Rosen expects two of the compounds to reach clinical trials in 2017.—MICHAEL MCCOY
FINANCE
▸ Leap Therapeutics in reverse merger
PERSONALIZED MEDICINE
▸ Novartis to disband its CART division Novartis is disbanding its Cell & Gene Therapy unit, which it formed about five years ago to pursue reprogramming the body’s T cells into cancer fighters called chimeric antigen receptor T cells, or CARTs. The company says it will integrate the activities of the 400-person unit into the larger Novartis organization. In the process, about 120 jobs will be lost. Novartis says it is committed to seeking U.S. and European approval of CTL019, a CART therapy for pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia, next year.—MICHAEL MCCOY
OUTSOURCING Trying to raise capital in a down period for initial public stock offerings, Leap Therapeutics will conduct a reverse merger with publicly held Macrocure. As a result, Leap’s stock will be traded and Macrocure will become a subsidiary. The deal should give Leap $30 million to support development
Dalton Pharma Services has completed a $5 million expansion of sterile filling and
active pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturing capacity at its facility in Toronto. The project also boosted analytical capabilities and chemistry R&D capacity. About 20 skilled jobs have been added at the site over the past year, the company says.—MICHAEL MCCOY
PHARMACEUTICAL CHEMICALS
▸ AMRI to close former Euticals site Albany Molecular Research Inc. (AMRI) has embarked on a restructuring in the wake of its May acquisition of the Italian pharmaceutical chemicals maker Euticals for $358 million. AMRI says it will close a Euticals facility and lay off an undisclosed number of workers in the U.S. and Europe by the end of the year. AMRI expects to incur a onetime charge of up to $7.3 million.—RICK MULLIN
Business Roundup
$20 billion Sadara project, which will ultimately house 26 chemical plants.
▸ Indorama Ventures, a Thai polyester producer, has received air permits for its project to refurbish and restart a 370,000-metric-tonper-year ethylene cracker in Lake Charles, La. The former Equistar Chemicals facility, which closed in 2001, is due to open late next year.
▸ Jacobs Engineering Group has acquired Bayer’s Bayqik sulfuric acid converter technology for an undisclosed sum. The process, commercialized 10 years ago, converts sulfur dioxide to sulfuric acid at nonferrous metal refining plants.
▸ Biothera Pharmaceuticals has expanded its oncology collaboration with Merck & Co. In Phase II trials, the companies are testing Merck’s anti-PD-1 inhibitor Keytruda in combination with Biothera’s Imprime PGG, a molecule that activates the innate immune system to boost the effect of tumor-targeting antibodies.
▸ Divi’s Laboratories plans to spend $75 million to build an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) plant in Andhra Pradesh in southern India. Formed in 1990, Hyderabad-based Divi’s is a producer of APIs and drug intermediates.
▸ Ferring Pharmaceuticals has licensed the rights to sell SI-6603 (condoliase) in all geographies, except Japan, from Seikagaku. SI-6603 is a chemonucleolytic enzyme in Phase III trials for treating leg pain resulting from herniated lumbar discs.
▸ Roquette, Brain A.G., and AnalytiCon Discovery are forming the Dolce consortium to develop new natural sweeteners. Roquette, a food ingredients maker, says it will benefit from Brain’s screening technology and Analyti-
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▸ Dalton adds capacity at Toronto facility
Dalton says customers are requesting sterile filling of both powders and liquids.
Con’s access to edible plant materials. ▸ Invista has spent $30 million to expand its nylon 6,6 fiber plant in Camden, S.C., to produce small lots of solution-dyed fiber. The company says it developed the new small-lot technology with the German equipment maker Truetzschler. ▸ Sadara Chemical, a joint venture between Dow Chemical and Saudi Aramco, has started up its ethylene cracker in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. The plant is the linchpin of the
C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | SEPTEMBER 5, 2016
C R ED IT: DALTO N
ONCOLOGY
