lithium-ion technology.—MELODY
an antibody that activates a T-cell surface protein believed to stimulate an anticancer immune response. Jounce could earn up to $2.3 billion in milestone payments across all the programs.—ANN THAYER
BOMGARDNER
POLYMERS
▸ Galenica to acquire Relypsa
Merck KGaA’s Burlington, Mass., campus under construction.
Galenica, a midsized Swiss drugmaker, has agreed to acquire the California biotech firm Relypsa for $1.5 billion in cash. Founded in 2007, Relypsa develops polymeric medicines for patients with conditions that can be treated in the gastrointestinal tract. FDA approved its first product, a treatment for elevated blood potassium levels, in October 2015. The drug, Veltassa, is based on a fluorinated polymer manufactured by the fine chemicals companies Saltigo and Patheon.—MICHAEL MCCOY
850 Billerica, Mass.-based employees will relocate to the $115 million campus when it is completed in the second half of 2017. The facility will include a new customer collaboration laboratory, dubbed M Lab. Merck has been remodeling its biomanufacturing training centers into M Labs and opened the first one in Tokyo at the end of June.—MARC REISCH
ONCOLOGY
▸ Celgene invests big in Jounce
INVESTMENT
▸ Merck KGaA builds North American hub Germany’s Merck is building a 2,600-m2 facility in Burlington, Mass., that will be the North American hub for its life sciences supplies and services business. About
Celgene will pay $225 million up front and make a $36 million equity investment to collaborate with Jounce Therapeutics, a three-year-old company focused on cancer immunotherapies and predictive biomarkers. In return, Celgene will have options on Jounce’s lead product candidate, JTX-2011, and up to four early-stage programs. Expected to soon enter clinical trials, JTX-2011 is
Business Roundup
CREDIT: MERCK KGAA
▸ American Refining has become a 33.3% investor in Novvi, a lubricants joint venture started by biobased chemicals firm Amyris and Cosan, a Brazilian energy corporation. Novvi’s lubricants, made from sugar, are used in automotive, industrial, marine, and construction applications. ▸ Celanese has named Verghese Thomas its chief technology and innovation officer. Thomas joined Celanese in 2009 after stints at Saudi Basic Industries Corp. and GE Plastics. Over the past 18, months he has led technology innovation efforts for Celanese’s engineered materials business. ▸ Huntsman Corp. has se-
cured about $9 million from Sustainable Development Capital, an investment bank, to fund energy efficiency projects at its site in Wilton, England. The projects are expected to cut the site’s greenhouse gas emissions by up to 28,000 metric tons per year. ▸ Ecolab has acquired a minority stake in Aquatech, a privately owned firm based in Canonsburg, Pa., that provides technologies for treating water and cutting water use. Ecolab says the deal will boost the range of technologies that its water treatment subsidiary Nalco Water can offer. ▸ BASF has forced an Australian company, PCT Holdings,
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
▸ Juno acquires RedoxTherapies Juno Therapeutics has acquired RedoxTherapies for $10 million in cash and potential milestone payments. With the deal comes vipadenant, a small-molecule adenosine A2A receptor antagonist that has the potential to inhibit immunosuppressive pathways in cancer. Juno intends to test the molecule in combination with its engineered T-cell O candidates. Only a few days before N N N announcing the N acquisition, Juno H2N N was allowed to restart a Phase II leukemia clinical Vipadenant trial of its lead product candidate, JCAR015. FDA had halted the trial when two patients died after the addition of another drug to the treatment regimen.—ANN THAYER
to stop selling an insecticide for cockroaches that used fipronil as the active ingredient, claiming that PCT infringed on its patent. In 2013 and 2015, BASF won two similar patent infringement cases in Australia. ▸ Oncorus, a new company developing oncolytic viruses, has launched with a $57 million financing round. Oncorus, which is based on the work of University of Pittsburgh scientists Joseph Glorioso III and Paola Grandi, says it will target highly malignant cancers such as glioblastoma multiforme. ▸ Cambridge Consultants, an outsourced R&D provider, has launched a new company called Evonetix backed by the venture capitalist Hermann Hauser. Evonetix says it will
apply an engineering approach to biology to synthesize DNA with very high accuracy. ▸ Chronos Therapeutics has acquired three preclinical central nervous system drug development programs from Shire, which has become an investor in Chronos. The programs target addictive behavior, fatigue in multiple sclerosis, and posttraumatic stress disorder. ▸ T2 Biosystems, a maker of time-domain nuclear magnetic resonance diagnostics, will work with Bayer to advance drug discovery and biomarker research for blood coagulation disorders. T2 says its system is sensitive to changes in blood viscosity and is being developed for platelet activity and clotting time measurements.
JULY 25, 2016 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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