Business Concentrates DRUG SAFETY
▸ Biobased startup tries new financing route Blue Marble Biomaterials aims to raise money via a stock offering to small investors. Based in Missoula, Mont., Blue Marble uses biorefining to convert food waste into chemicals. Last year it launched a dithiazine bacon flavor from raw materials such as coffee grounds, tomato pomace, and grape pomace. It also formed a collaboration with Welch’s to upgrade waste from grape and apple juice processing. In 2015, the Securities & Exchange Commission adopted Regulation A+, which allows startups to raise up to $50 million from small investors. Previously, such venture capital investing was limited to high-net-worth individuals.—ALEX TULLO
ELECTRONIC MATERIALS
▸ Sumitomo to triple OLED touch screens Sumitomo Chemical will triple capacity at its South Korean subsidiary Dongwoo Fine-Chem to make film-based touch-
FDA warns Wockhardt, Fosun The U.S. FDA has again warned the Indian generic drug producer Wockhardt about problems at one of its facilities, this time in the U.S. The agency also warned a subsidiary of Fosun Pharmaceutical—one of China’s leading drug producers—regarding a facility in southwest China. In a statement to the National Stock Exchange of India, Wockhardt says FDA has banned its Chicago-based unit, Morton Grove Pharmaceuticals, which produces oral and topical formulations, from launching new products in the U.S. until it addresses manufacturing deficiencies. In December, FDA warned Wockhardt about failure to maintain sterile conditions and manufacturing data integrity at a facility in Gujarat, India. In China, FDA uncovered data integrity issues at Fosun’s Chongqing Pharma Research Institute subsidiary, which produces active pharmaceutical ingredients. Investigators found that the firm deleted “entire chromatographic sequences” and other data from its computer records.—JEAN-
FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
START-UPS
▸ BASF, others back P2 Science
CLIMATE CHANGE
▸ Alberta funds CO2 to chemicals
screen panels for displays based on organic light-emitting diodes. The films are particularly suited for use on curved and flexible displays, Sumitomo says. The Japanese firm decided to expand its plant because South Korean display makers are significantly expanding. OLED displays are present on Samsung smartphones and may be adopted by Apple for its next generation of iPhones.—JEAN-FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
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C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | MARCH 13, 2017
MCCOY
SPECIALTY CHEMICALS The renewable chemical company P2 Science has closed a $9.6 million series B financing round that included BASF Venture Capital. The company says it will use the proceeds to build its first commercial plant, in the New Haven, Conn., area. Cofounded by Yale University, Yale scientists, chemical industry veteran Neil Burns, and Elm Street Ventures, P2 uses ozonolysis and flow chemistry to convert feedstocks such as vegetable oil and forestry-derived terpenes into specialty chemicals.—
MICHAEL MCCOY
The Samsung Galaxy Edge phone features an OLED display.
produce fuels from CO2 and wastewater with the help of solar power.—MICHAEL
The Alberta government will award a total of $12 million to four projects that seek to transform carbon dioxide from waste into an asset. Two of the projects, from Solidia Technologies and CarbonCure Technologies, sequester CO2 by injecting it into concrete during the curing process. Mangrove Water Technologies, a spin-off from the University of British Columbia’s chemical engineering department, is developing a reactor that converts CO2 and saline wastewater into chemicals such as hydrochloric acid and carbonate salts. And working with the Canadian start-up Lumenfab, McGill University seeks to
▸ Fine Industries sold to Chinese buyer The private equity firm Northedge Capital has sold the Middlesbrough, England-based fine chemicals firm Fine Industries to China’s Lianhe Chemical Technology for an undisclosed sum. With 220 employees, Fine Industries had sales last year of $63 million and pretax profits of $12 million. It manufactures intermediates and active ingredients for pesticide and pharmaceutical customers along with a suite of specialty chemicals. Fine Industries was acquired by Degussa in 2001 before being sold to management in 2008 and then to Northedge in 2013.—ALEX SCOTT
COATINGS
▸ Perstorp sells Belgium site to Synthomer Swedish specialty chemical firm Perstorp has agreed to sell its site in Ghent, Belgium, which produces additives for the coatings industry, to England-based Synthomer for about $82 million. The plant has 45 employees and generated pretax profits of $8.5 million in 2016. “The business is an excellent
CREDIT: LESZEK KOBUSINSKI/SHUTTERSTOCK
BIOBASED CHEMICALS
fit and provides increased access to new products and customers,” says Synthomer CEO Calum MacLean.—ALEX SCOTT
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
▸ Otsuka to acquire Neurovance
INORGANIC CHEMICALS
▸ Wacker will expand silicon in Norway Wacker Chemie is expanding silicon metal capacity at its site in Holla, Norway. The company will spend about $90 million on a new plant that will come on-line in the first half of 2019. Wacker uses the metal to make silicones and polysilicon. The Holla plant currently covers one-quarter of the company’s silicon requirements.—ALEX TULLO
BIOLOGICS
▸ China’s BeiGene plans biologics plant
CREDIT: VANDERBILT
Beijing-based oncology drug discovery firm BeiGene is joining with the government of Guangzhou in southern China to build a $330 million biologic drug facility in the Guangzhou Development District. The venture will also fund biologic drug R&D in China. Under the agreement, $30 million will come from BeiGene and $150 million from Guangzhou. The venture will borrow the rest. BeiGene says it needs largescale manufacturing facilities to ensure growth.—JEAN-FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
Otsuka Pharmaceutical will pay $100 million up front and up to $150 million in potential milestone payments to acquire Cambridge, Mass.-based Neurovance, a six-year-old company focused on attention-deficit/hyperacH tivity disorder. Its lead N ADHD candidate is H centanafadine, which has completed Phase II clinical trials. According to Neurovance, centanafadine is one Centanafadine of a new generation of triple reuptake inhibitors that modulate the activity of norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin. The acquisition will extend Otsuka’s efforts in the area of central nervous system therapy.—ANN THAYER
A researcher in the Fesik lab at Vanderbilt.
called SOS that acts as a molecular switch activating KRAS, a gene essential to normal tissue signaling. Mutations of the gene are responsible for the onset of various forms of cancer. The venture is based on research done in the laboratory of Vanderbilt chemist Stephen W. Fesik. The partners previously identified compounds that bind to KRAS with high affinity.—RICK MULLIN
VACCINES
▸ Sanofi, AstraZeneca in respiratory deal
ONCOLOGY
▸ Boehringer, Vanderbilt pact targets KRAS Advancing a two-year-old cancer drug discovery partnership, Boehringer Ingelheim and Vanderbilt University will research and develop small molecules targeting a protein
Sanofi Pasteur and MedImmune, the biologics arm of AstraZeneca, have agreed to develop MED18897, a monoclonal antibody, for the prevention of lower respiratory tract illness caused by respiratory syncytial virus. MED18897 is currently in a Phase II clinical trial involving infants ineligible for Synagis, the current standard of care. Sanofi Pasteur will make an up-front payment of $127 million to MedImmune and milestone payments of up to $523 million.—RICK MULLIN
Business Roundup
mulate and test products for the Indian market.
ecule drug discovery programs at Belgium’s UCB.
▸ Wacker Chemie will spend about $7 million to expand silicone production at its Jandira site near São Paulo, Brazil. The firm says the project will boost output of antifoam compounds and specialty silicones for industries such as paper and personal care.
▸ Vaxess Technologies has received two grants totaling about $6 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support the development of polio and measles-rubella vaccines. The company uses silk-derived biopolymers to create controlled-release microneedle patches for transdermal delivery of vaccines.
▸ BioVersys, a Swiss biotech firm, will work with the U.S. drug discovery services firm Aptuit on new targets and molecules for Gram-negative bacteria. BioVersys studies small molecules that interfere with bacterial-resistance mechanisms.
▸ Vernalis and Servier, partners since 2007, have set up a new two-year oncology drug discovery collaboration. Vernalis will receive an initial $2 million for applying its fragment- and structure-based drug discovery methods to the program.
▸ Pharmaron, a Beijing-based contract research firm, has agreed to buy a majority stake in a U.S. subsidiary of Japan’s Shin-Nippon Biomedical Laboratories. Based at the University of Maryland BioPark, the subsidiary conducts Phase I and II clinical studies for drug industry customers. ▸ Herbalife, a producer of supplements used for weight loss and nutrition, has set up a 275-m2 facility at the Bangalore, India, site of the contract research firm Syngene. Staffed with Syngene employees, the facility will help Herbalife for-
▸ UCB Biopharma has signed a multiyear “insourcing” agreement with the French contract research firm NovAliX. Under the pact, NovAliX will provide on-site chemistry services to support small-mol-
▸ Takeda Pharmaceutical invested in the $120 million initial public offering of Arix Bioscience, a London-based firm that finances and builds life sciences businesses. Arix says it will create and incubate companies in partnership with Takeda.
MARCH 13, 2017 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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