it has a new partnership with Synlogic, a drug discovery firm, to find so-called living medicines to treat neurological and liver disorders.—MELODY BOMGARDNER
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FINE CHEMICALS
▸ PMC bests Axyntis in quest for Isochem WuXi says it began construction of this facility in April 2015.
able bioreactors, is now in full operation. The $150 million, 45,000-m2 plant in Wuxi, China, has a total capacity of 30,000 L. The facility quintuples biologics capacity for the firm, which opened its first such plant in Wuxi in 2012.—RICK MULLIN
SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY
▸ Ginkgo raises funds, forms partnership
C R E D I T: WUX I BI O LO GI CS
Synthetic biology start-up Ginkgo Bioworks raised $275 million in its fourth round of venture capital funding, led by Viking Global Investors, the Y Combinator Continuity fund, and Bill Gates’s Cascade Investment. Ginkgo will use the money to open its third facility to develop microbes altered with synthetic DNA. Ginkgo sells the microbes to firms that use them to produce flavors, fragrances, and other molecules. Separately,
PMC has prevailed over Axyntis, a French manufacturer of active pharmaceutical ingredients, in its bid to acquire Isochem, the former drug chemical operation of France’s SNPE. The acquisition, for an undisclosed sum, takes a company with little experience supplying complex chemistries to the drug industry into what it perceives as a lucrative market. It follows PMC’s purchase of Yegna Manojavam Drugs & Chemicals, an Indian fluoroquinolone drug maker, in October.—RICK MULLIN
PHARMACEUTICALS
▸ Janssen buys into Idorsia drug Janssen, the research arm of Johnson & Johnson, has opted into the development of Idorsia’s blood pressure drug aprocitentan. The decision, which grants Janssen global rights to the compound and its derivatives, triggers a payment of $230 million to the Swiss biotech firm.
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Aprocitentan, a small-molecule dual endothelin receptor antagonist, is for people whose high blood pressure can’t be sufficiently lowered by other medicines. Idorsia is developing a Phase III study of the drug, set to begin next year.—LISA JARVIS
BIOTECHNOLOGY
▸ Gilead to acquire Cell Design Labs Gilead Sciences is expanding its cell therapy program by acquiring Emeryville, Calif.-based Cell Design Labs for up to $567 million. Cell Design Labs focuses on improving CAR T-cell immunotherapies, in which a person’s T cells are removed, edited, and reinjected to kill tumors. The firm’s technologies include an “on-off” switch for CAR T cells and novel receptors that could help T cells target cancerous cells while ignoring healthy ones. The buyout comes just two months after FDA approved a CAR T-cell therapy from Kite Pharma, which Gilead acquired in August for $11.9 billion.—RYAN CROSS
▸ Hanwha Total Petrochemical will spend $300 million to expand polyethylene capacity in Daesan, South Korea, by 50% to 1.1 million metric tons per year. Set to be completed in 2019, the expansion will complement an ongoing project at the site to start using propane feedstock.
▸ Asilomar Bio, a start-up developing crop yield-enhancing chemicals, has raised $12 million in a second round of funding from the venture arms of Syngenta and Wilbur-Ellis. Asilomar’s first product is intended to help plants better use water and nutrients in the soil.
▸ Mitsui Chemicals and BASF will commercialize broflanilide, a broad-use insecticide with a new mode of action. The chemical, discovered and developed by the two firms, interrupts a GA-
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Aprocitentan
BA-gated chloride channel in the motor neurons of insects.
▸ Cornerstone Chemical is licensing hydrogen cyanide technology from Chemours. Cornerstone will decide next year whether to use the technology to build another hydrogen cyanide plant in Waggaman, La.
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Business Roundup ▸ Lubrizol and the University of Pittsburgh’s department of chemical and petroleum engineering have received a U.S. Department of Energy grant to develop energy efficiency and productivity improvement methods. The $7.5 million project includes financial contributions from Lubrizol and the school.
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▸ Solvay will increase its production of natural vanillin, made from rice bran, by 60 metric tons per year. While most vanillin is made from petroleum precursors, companies are increasingly seeking out natural vanillin.
▸ NorthSea Therapeutics has launched with nearly $30 million in funding to develop icosabutate for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, a liver disease. NorthSea licensed icosabutate, which has already completed Phase II studies as a treatment for high levels of triglycerides, from Pronova BioPharma Norge. ▸ Amgen has tapped Berkeley, Calif.-based Carmot Therapeutics for a Parkinson’s disease drug discovery partnership potentially worth $240 million in milestones. Carmot’s technology, chemotype evolution, is a type of fragment-based drug discovery.
DECEMBER 11/18, 2017 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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