Business Concentrates PEOPLE
▸ Tax rules scuttle CF and OCI merger CF Industries and OCI have canceled their $8 billion fertilizer merger in light of Treasury Department rules meant to discourage tax inversions, acquisitions in which U.S. companies lower their tax bills by domiciling overseas. CF is U.S.-based; OCI is Dutch. The combined company would have been the world’s largest publicly traded nitrogen fertilizer maker. The Treasury rules, announced in April, “materially reduced the structural synergies of the combination,” the companies say. CF will pay OCI a $150 million termination fee. The huge planned merger between Pfizer and Allergan was similarly scuttled by the new tax rules.—ALEX TULLO
ENERGY STORAGE
▸ Stanley invests in a battery company … Prieto Battery, a lithium-ion battery firm spun off from Colorado State University, has won an investment from Stanley Ventures, the venture capital arm of the toolmaker Stanley Black & Decker. Prieto, which received an investment from Intel last year, was founded in 2009 by Amy Prieto, an associate professor in Colorado State’s chemistry department. The firm says its three-dimensional cell architecture allows the production of powerful batteries in customized shapes.—MICHAEL MCCOY
ENERGY STORAGE
▸ … As FMC, Asahi Kasei spend on batteries Pointing to rapid growth in electric vehicle sales, FMC says it will triple its capacity for battery-grade lithium hydroxide to 30,000 metric tons per year. The company anticipates a three-phase project, the first phase of which will be in China and be completed by mid-2017. The other phases will be done by 2019. Asahi Kasei, meanwhile, says it will spend $55 million to expand lithium-ion battery separator capacity by 60 million m2 per year at its plant in Moriyama, Japan.—MICHAEL MCCOY
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C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | MAY 30, 2016
DowDuPont leaders named Dow Chemical and DuPont have named the executives who will lead the combined firm after the planned consummation of their massive merger later this year. As announced in December, Dow CEO Andrew N. Liveris will become chairman and DuPont CEO Edward D. Breen will become CEO of the combined DowDuPont. Now revealed are the heads of the three divisions that will become three separate companies 18 to 24 months after the close of the merger. Jim Fitterling, now Dow’s chief operating officer, will be COO of the materials science business. James C. Collins Jr., who heads DuPont’s Fitterling Collins Doyle agriculture business, will be COO of the combined agrochemical and seeds unit. Marc Doyle, currently head of DuPont’s electronics and communications business, has been named COO of the specialty products business. These executives won’t necessarily be the CEOs of the three companies when they are spun off. DowDuPont’s board will ultimately make those selections, a spokesperson says.—ALEX TULLO
AGRICULTURE
▸ Sumitomo boosts methionine in Japan Sumitomo Chemical will expand methionine capacity in Ehime on the Japanese island of Shikoku by 65% to 250,000 metric tons per year. Sumitomo selected the site for its existing O infrastructure S and people with HO CH3 ample technical know-how. NH2 The firm’s last Methionine expansion at the facility was in 2009. Competitor Evonik Industries is currently building a second methionine facility in Singapore that will have a capacity of 150,000 metric tons per year. Methionine is an amino acid given to pigs and poultry.—JEAN-FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
▸ Axiall invites new Westlake bid After twice rejecting a takeover bid from polyvinyl chloride maker Westlake Chemical, Axiall is opening its “data room” to
its rival and is inviting it to make yet another bid by June 3. Axiall turned down a $3.1 billion bid from Westlake in April and a $2.9 billion offer in January. Westlake says it will either reaffirm its earlier bid or submit a higher one by the deadline. But keeping up the pressure, Westlake says it will continue pushing to replace Axiall directors at the latter’s June 17 annual meeting.—
MARC REISCH
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
▸ Dow petition rejected in Nova polymer case The Supreme Court has rejected Dow Chemical’s petition to restore $30 million in damages awarded in a patent infringement case against Nova Chemicals. Dow had claimed that some Nova linear low-density polyethylene grades infringed its patents. Nova had paid Dow $77 million in damages in 2012 and was on the hook for another $30 million in a subsequent district court judgment. A circuit court stripped that award when it determined, given a new Supreme Court precedent, that the Dow patents were “indefinite” and couldn’t be reasonably interpreted.—ALEX TULLO
CREDIT: DOW (FITTERLING); DUPONT (COLLINS, DOYLE)
FINANCE
ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
▸ Grace completes chromatography exit
meningitis and rabies. Chinese authorities say they will start to oversee nonessential vaccines.—JEAN-FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
START-UPS W.R. Grace has reached agreements to divest its remaining businesses in chromatography instruments, columns, and related laboratory products. Grace says it will continue to sell chromatography silica media. Germany’s Dr. Maisch will buy Grace’s line of analytical HPLC columns, preparative columns, and packing equipment and services. England-based Hichrom and Singapore-based S*Pure will buy a number of other Grace column brands. Büchi Labortechnik acquired Grace’s portfolio of flash chromatography and evaporative light-scattering detector instruments last month. —MARC REISCH
VACCINES
Thunderbolt Pharma has become the first company created by Vitesse Biologics, a drug development collaboration formed by Baxalta, Mayo Clinic, and Velocity Pharmaceutical Development. Thunderbolt has acquired a BAFF/APRIL dual antagonist program from Astellas Pharma. With the three Vitesse partners contributing financially, Thunderbolt will develop the dual antagonists for B-cell-mediated disorders including systemic lupus erythematosus. Baxalta, Mayo Clinic, Velocity, and Astellas are all shareholders in Thunderbolt.—ANN
THAYER
▸ China arrests 125 for tainted vaccines
Red quantum dots being manufactured in a 70-L vessel at Nanosys. Hitachi plans to begin shipping QDEFbrand film to manufacturers of displays.—
MICHAEL MCCOY
PHARMACEUTICAL CHEMICALS
▸ Italian merger set in drug ingredients
MATERIALS
Chinese prosecutors arrested 125 people for illegally selling vaccines and are starting to investigate 37 government officials for negligence and corruption. The arrests come after the disclosure in March of a vast network that sold poorly stored and out-ofdate vaccines throughout China since 2011. Unlike compulsory vaccines that are distributed by the government, the defective vaccines were noncompulsory and meant to prevent the spread of diseases including
CREDIT: NANOSYS
▸ Thunderbolt licenses Astellas B-cell program
▸ Companies join for quantum dots Nanosys and Hitachi Chemical are joining to develop Nanosys’s quantum-dot-containing films for display applications. California-based Nanosys says its quantum dots, which are semiconducting inorganic particles, make liquid-crystal diode displays more vivid by enabling pure colors.
The Italian firm Olon has acquired its rival Infa in a deal that will create one of Europe’s largest pharmaceutical chemical makers. The combined company expects its sales this year to exceed $335 million. It will operate seven plants in Italy and one in Spain that make active ingredients for generic drugs and provide contract manufacturing. The combined firm is owned by Italy’s P&R Group, which also owns the drug company Fidia Farmaceutici and the resin maker Sir Industriale.—MICHAEL MCCOY
Business Roundup
ethoxylation production at the plant earlier this year.
▸ Kuraray will expand its ethylene vinyl alcohol copolymer plant in Pasadena, Texas, by 11,000 metric tons per year. The Japanese firm says the project will cost $75 million and be completed by the summer of 2018. It recently opened a polyvinyl alcohol plant at the site and is considering adding a vinyl acetate facility.
▸ Amyris has struck a deal with South Korea’s CJ CheilJedang to use CJ’s manufacturing capacity to produce farnesene, Amyris’s main biobased product. Amyris already makes farnesene in Brazil with its partner Bunge.
▸ Chemours, the former performance chemicals business of DuPont, is asking the state of Delaware for a grant of $9 million. The money will be used for a headquarters pro-
ject in Wilmington, Del., and to retain jobs. ▸ Clariant will develop catalysts that work with ethanol-to-olefins technology developed by Gevo, a biobased chemicals firm. Clariant will build upon Gevo-discovered mixed metal oxide catalysts that convert ethanol to propylene and isobutylene. ▸ Stepan will cease all production at its detergents facility in Longford Mills, Ontario, by the end of this year. The company discontinued
▸ Avista Pharma Solutions will expand its contract microbiology and analytical chemistry labs in Agawam, Mass. Avista was formed last year through the merger of assets from Accuratus Lab Services, Array BioPharma, and Scynexis.
▸ Arrivo BioVentures has launched with $49 million in committed capital from Jazz Pharmaceuticals and other investors. To be led by Research Triangle Park, N.C.-area entrepreneurs, Arrivo plans to acquire four to six new drug candidates over the next several years. ▸ BASF has sold its Kollicoat IR pharmaceutical tablet coating systems business to Colorcon, a developer of coatings and controlled-release products for the drug industry. The companies say they will continue a tablet coatings cooperation that began in October 2014.
MAY 30, 2016 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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