Business Concentrates INVESTMENT SPECIALTY CHEMICALS
▸ AkzoNobel, Axalta end merger talks For the second time this year, AkzoNobel has halted a merger with another paint maker. The Dutch company broke off merger talks with Axalta Coatings Systems, the former coatings business of DuPont, after Axalta received a competing offer from Japan’s Nippon Paint. AkzoNobel’s coatings sales are about $10 billion per year; Axalta’s are $4 billion. AkzoNobel says it still plans to separate its chemicals business. Earlier this year, it fought off a takeover attempt by U.S. rival PPG Industries. PPG walked away in June, but under Dutch law, it may again bid for AkzoNobel next month.—ALEX TULLO
Corporations pledge aid to chemical start-ups New chemical ventures don’t make money for their investors nearly as often as start-ups in life sciences and software do. To correct that imbalance, corporations need to step up and support young chemistry-related university spin-offs, David Bem, PPG Industries’ chief technology officer, said at a conference for entrepreneurs. A start-up whose technologies align with PPG’s interests might leverage a relationship with the paint maker to gain market and technology improvement insights, Bem said. Such a partnership could improve the value of the smaller firm’s business before it starts to raise funding in earnest. Bem spoke at the ACS Entrepreneur Summit, held in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 14–15. ACS publishes C&EN. Chemical firms should set up start-up incubators, he suggested, like Google and Johnson & Johnson and other health care firms have. Others attending the summit, including executives from Procter & Gamble, Evonik Industries, Mitsui Chemicals, and Waters Corp., also endorsed the value of outside innovators to their businesses. Gerard Baillely, P&G’s vice president of R&D, said, “We need entrepreneurs to help guide us to success.”—MARC REISCH
PETROCHEMICALS
Ineos has signed an agreement to supply U.S. ethane to China’s SP Chemicals under a long-term contract. To fulfill the agreement, Ineos will build what it calls the world’s largest ethane carrier ship, able to carry up to 95,000 m3 of the gas per trip.
batteries to be used in electric vehicles. SiNode is developing silicon graphene anode materials that promise to make higher-capacity, faster-charging batteries than the lithium-ion batteries in use today. Using its in-house expertise, PPG will prepare and help scale up production of graphene for SiNode.—MARC REISCH
AGRICULTURE
▸ Yara will buy Brazilian fertilizer plant Ineos already ships U.S. ethane to its own ethylene crackers in Europe. The gas will supply a 650,000-metric-tonper-year ethylene cracker that SP is building in Taixing in the eastern province of Jiangsu. The cracker is scheduled to open in 2019.—JEAN-FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
ENERGY STORAGE
Norwegian fertilizer maker Yara has agreed to purchase a Brazilian fertilizer plant, Vale Cubatão Fertilizantes, for $255 million from the mining firm Vale. The plant, in Cubatão, Brazil, makes nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers. It generated revenues of $413 million and earnings of $30 million in 2016. The plant was left out of the U.S. firm Mosaic’s $2.5 billion purchase of Vale Fertilizantes, which is still pending nearly a year after the companies inked the agreement.—ALEX TULLO
3-D PRINTING
▸ PPG partners with battery materials maker ▸ Dow Chemical unveils printing materials PPG Industries will partner with start-up SiNode Systems to help commercialize high-energy anode materials for lithium-ion
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C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | NOVEMBER 27, 2017
Dow Chemical launched its EVOLV3D line of three-dimensional printing mate-
rials at the FormNext 2017 trade show in Frankfurt, Germany, earlier this month. The first product is EVOLV3D USM, a support material used in extrusion-based 3-D printing. The material is meant to support overhangs, preventing them from collapsing while a part is being printing. EVOLV3D USM is then dissolved in water when the printing process is finished. Dow is also developing a liquid silicone rubber for 3-D printing.—ALEX TULLO
CONSUMER PRODUCTS
▸ Linde helps keep Macy’s parade afloat Continuing a “noble” 23-year tradition, Linde supplied helium gas for the iconic Thanksgiving Day Parade in Manhattan last week. The German firm supplied roughly 8,500 m3 of the noble gas for the parade’s 45 balloons. The gas originated at Linde’s plant in Otis, Kan., which refines crude he-
A Spider-Man balloon at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.
C R E D I T: I NEO S ( S H I P ) ; S H UT T E RSTO C K ( S P I D E R-M A N )
▸ Ineos supplies U.S. shale gas to China
PHARMACEUTICALS
lium purchased from natural gas producers and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the caretaker of the National Helium Reserve.—ALEX TULLO
▸ Boehringer provides access to molecules
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
▸ Avantor completes VWR acquisition Avantor, a minnow in the laboratory supply business with about $700 million in annual sales, has completed its acquisition of VWR, a whale in the industry with $4.5 billion in sales. The combination, valued at $6.5 billion, will benefit from “deeper access to the high-growth biopharma, industrial, and applied research sectors,” says Avantor CEO Michael Stubblefield. The new firm will retain the Avantor name; the VWR name remains as a sales channel. Avantor was created in 2010 by the private equity firm New Mountain Capital through the acquisition of lab chemical maker Mallinckrodt Baker.—MARC REISCH
BIOFUELS
▸ Qantas to fuel plane with tiny seeds Early next year Qantas will fly the first biofueled flight between the U.S. and Australia, using fuel made from the seeds of Brassica carinata, a nonfood relative of the mustard plant. Fuel Services and AltAir Fuels will produce the fuel from a carinata variety developed by Agrisoma Biosciences. The
Carinata mustard seed to be grown by Australian farmers for biofuel production. companies plan to establish the water-efficient crop in Australia and hope to produce 200 million L of fuel annually by 2020. AltAir currently supplies United Airlines flights at Los Angeles International Airport with fuels made from vegetable and waste oils.—MELODY BOMGARDNER
DRUG DISCOVERY
▸ Bayer to collaborate with PeptiDream The Japanese drug discovery firm PeptiDream has added Bayer to the list of major drug firms with which it collaborates. Its agreement with Bayer involves identifying macrocyclic and constrained peptides from PeptiDream’s peptide library for use against targets selected by Bayer. Promising compounds will be optimized into therapeutic peptides or small-molecule drugs. PeptiDream will receive an up-front fee as part of the agreement and could receive as much as $1.1 billion in milestone payments. The Japanese firm has similar agreements with drugmakers including Merck & Co., Janssen, and Bristol-Myers Squibb.—JEAN-FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
C R E D I T: AGR I S O MA BI O S C I E N CES
Business Roundup
Boehringer Ingelheim has begun offering outside scientists free access to select preclinical molecules for nonclinical investigation on an online platform called opnME.com. Most molecules are offered without intellectual property agreements. Boehringer is also offering a crowdsourcing service on the site through which scientists submit proposals for projects that can be developed with the company’s researchers. The platform follows other moves at the firm to promote collaboration, including Research Beyond Borders, a research partnership initiative, and the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund.—
RICK MULLIN
INFORMATICS
▸ Roche adds data firm to diagnostics arm Roche has agreed to acquire Viewics, a laboratory analytics software firm, for an undisclosed sum. Viewics, which specializes in managing large stores of lab data from both internal and external sources, will be added to the drug firm’s Integrated Core Lab diagnostic systems business. The cloud-based Viewics system can automatically extract, cleanse, and augment data and make it accessible on devices such as smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers.—RICK MULLIN
▸ BYK, the additives and instruments business of Altana, is investing $50 million at its Gonzales, Texas, facility to expand modified phyllosilicate rheology additives. The company is also establishing a rheology modifier R&D center.
Tronox CEO Peter Johnston.
including aerospace, automotive, and energy. GeonX’s software is called Virfac for “virtual factory.”
▸ DuPont is increasing capacity to compound its Zytel nylon resins at its site in Mechelen, Belgium. The firm says demand is increasing in auto, consumer, and electronics markets.
▸ SK Capital has completed its acquisition of Perrigo’s active pharmaceutical ingredients business. The business, which operates mainly in Israel, will be called Wavelength Pharmaceuticals.
▸ Tronox has named Jeffry N. Quinn, 58, president and CEO as of Dec. 1. Quinn led Solutia from 2004 until Eastman Chemical acquired it in 2012. He succeeds interim
▸ GE Additives has acquired GeonX, a developer of software that simulates additive manufacturing, welding, machining, and heat treatment processes in industries
▸ Mayo Clinic and Evelo Biosciences are joining to develop what Evelo calls monoclonal microbials for the treatment of inflammatory diseases. Evelo will get a
license to related technology developed at Mayo. ▸ Merck & Co. has licensed T-cell-modulating biologics technology from Cue Biopharma for the treatment of autoimmune disease. Cue gets an up-front payment and could earn up to $374 million in milestones. ▸ Genentech has expanded a license agreement with Arvinas, developer of small-molecule drugs that degrade disease-causing proteins. Arvinas now could reap more than $650 million.
NOVEMBER 27, 2017 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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