NEWS OF THE WEEK CUSTOM
CHEMICALS
INFORMEX INFORMS Custom chemical trade show heralds new directions for industry
ON A ROLL Custom chemical players converge on Las Vegas.
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ic Chemical Manufacturers Association's Informex exhibition in Las Vegas last week, announcements highlighted the custom chemical industry's twin push toward biopharmaceuticals and business development in Asia. Sigma-Aldrich announced that it will acquire the J R H Biosciences division of CSLLtd. for $370 million. J R H , a supplier of cell-culture and sera products with 2 0 0 4 sales of some $150 million, will bring biopharmaceuticals to 50% of sales at Sigma's newly formed SAFC fine chemicals operation, according
to Frank Wicks, SAFC president. SAFC spent last year building its small-molecule portfolio with the purchase of Ultrafine and Tetrionics. Wicks said the J R H purchase, Sigma's biggest acquisition to date, will better position the firm to service biotech and emerging pharmaceutical companies, which constitute a market growing at 15% per year. Two firms confirmed plans to expand in Asia. Degussa's exclusive synthesis and catalysts business will commit $1.3 million to a new R&D center in Mumbai, India, that will include a kilo-scale plant, according to Peter Nagler,
'CLEAR SKIES' A DIRTIER POLICY NRC says President's plan unlikely to cut emissions as much as current law EMIT Expansions or modernizations of chemical plants can trigger new source review requirements.
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plan to reduce air pollution would likely curb emissions less than current law does, an interim report by the National Research Council (NRC) says.
2005
The report, released onJan. 14, scrutinizes apart of the Clean Air Act that requires industry to install modern pollution controls when plants built before 1970 make renovations that increase emissions. That section of the law, called new source review (NSR), applies to chemical plants, utilities, and other industrial facilities. NRC also examines Bush's proposed Clear Skies program, which is a cap-and-trade program for reducing sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury emissions at coal-fired power plants. The report says it is "unlikely that Clear Skies would result in emission limits at individual sources that are tighter than those achieved when NSR
outgoingpresident ofthe business. Albany Molecular Research announced the establishment of a subsidiary in Singapore that will provide fee-for-service medicinal chemistry, combinatorial chemistry process research, and scaleup. CEO Thomas E. D'Ambrasaid the firm has made an initial $5 million investment in Singapore and plans to launch a similar operation in Hyderabad, India, later this year. Avecia announced the spin-off of Reaxa, a joint venture of its polymer chemistry group and Cambridge University The new company will work on encapsulated precious-metal catalysts that Avecia has developed in collaboration with professor Steven V Ley's laboratory at Cambridge. Peter Jackson, vice president of Avecia's pharmaceutical business and CEO of Reaxa, expects the company to reach $20 million in sales in five years. —RICK MULLIN
is triggered at the same sources. "In general, N S R provides more stringent emission limits" for industrial air pollution than do other programs, including the Bush initiative, it adds. The report comes as the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee plans hearings in coming weeks on legislation to implement the Clear Skies program. In case the bill runs into political roadblocks, EPA recently proposed parts ofthe President's initiative as a regulation. Also, EPA is under a court deadline to issue a regulation in March to control mercury emissions from power plants. The Clear Skies bill would replace that rule. The Bush Administration opposes NSR, and has not aggressively enforced NSR regulations, but many states are stepping into the void left by federal inaction. New York last week announced settlement agreements with two major utilities in the state to slash S 0 2 and N O x from coal-fired power plants. NRC's final report is expected in late 2005. — CHERYL H0GUE HTTP://WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
