of carbon stored by the algae Nannochloropsis gaditana in fatty acids rather than in carbohydrates or proteins. They then used CRISPR/Cas9 and RNA interference to create
Researchers inspect algae with high oil content. mutations in the transcription factors, resulting in algae that make more oil without inhibited growth. ExxonMobil says the technology is still years from the market.—MELODY BOMGARDNER
BIOTECHNOLOGY
START-UPS
▸ JSR buys another life sciences firm
▸ Biotech firm Rubius raises $120 million
JSR has agreed to acquire Selexis, a Swiss firm with a mammalian cell-line generation technology said to improve yields of protein therapies such as bispecific antibodies, multimeric proteins, and Fc-fusion proteins. Low yields, weak protein expression, and poor analytical techniques are hampering the development of promising new treatments, JSR claims. Selexis will be integrated into KBI Biopharma, a biopharmaceutical contract manufacturer that JSR bought in 2015.—JEAN-FRANÇOIS
Rubius Therapeutics, a Cambridge, Mass.based developer of red-blood-cell-based therapies, has raised $120 million in a financing round that included its founding investor, Flagship Pioneering, as well as other investors. Rubius engineers red blood cells to express enzymes, agonists, antagonists, and other proteins. Launched in 2014, the company says its lead programs include enzyme replacement therapies and therapies targeting cancer. It expects to start human trials in 2018.—MICHAEL MCCOY
TREMBLAY
DRUG DEVELOPMENT
REGULATION
▸ Conditions placed on Evonik-Huber deal The European Commission has approved Evonik Industries’ $630 million purchase of J.M. Huber Corp.’s specialty silica operations, but with conditions. Evonik will have to divest precipitated silica used in dental applications. Huber will have to divest precipitated silica used as a defoamer as well as its hydrophobic precipitated silica business. The commission says the two must sell the businesses, and provide production technology and support, to a firm with an established presence in Europe. Both have agreed to the conditions.—
MARC REISCH
ONCOLOGY
▸ Merck KGaA spins off ▸ Start-up Repare uses immuno-oncology firm synthetic lethality Repare Therapeutics has launched with $68 million in financing to develop drugs that target genetically defined weaknesses in cancer. Repare was started by three academic scientists and nurtured for 18 months by Versant Ventures. In that time, the company used a CRISPR-enabled drug discovery concept, known as synthetic lethality, to identify several promising oncology targets and multiple preclinical molecules, Versant says. Another start-up, Tango Therapeutics, launched in March to exploit synthetic lethality.—MICHAEL MCCOY
Business Roundup
CREDIT: SYNTHETIC GENOMICS
▸ Trinseo, a styrenic polymers firm, is buying Applicazioni Plastiche Industriali, a thermoplastic elastomers specialist. API makes products such as thermoplastic polyurethane and ethylene vinyl acetate compounds at its plant in Mussolente, Italy. ▸ DuPont will spend $40 million to expand its ethylene cracker in Orange, Texas, by about 90,000 metric tons per year. The addition will be built by CB&I, which will install its short residence time pyrolysis heater technology.
Merck KGaA’s corporate venture arm has created a new company, iOnctura, based on two potential drugs from its health care R&D portfolio and three from Cancer Research Technology, the commercial arm of the nonprofit Cancer Research UK. Catherine Pickering, CEO and cofounder of iOnctura, says the firm’s goal is to modulate immunosuppression in the tumor microenvironment to maximize the potential of checkpoint inhibitor drugs. The firm has access to supplies of avelumab, a checkpoint inhibitor being developed by Merck and Pfizer.—MICHAEL MCCOY
cility that makes the animal feed amino acid l-lysine by fermentation.
▸ Amyris will receive unspecified support from the government of Queensland, Australia, to build a 23,000-metricton-per-year farnesene plant there. The farnesene will be made from local sugarcane and sold in Asia for use in cosmetics, fragrances, nutraceuticals, and other products.
▸ Evotec and members of the facioscapulohumeral dystrophy community have made a $5.4 million investment in Facio Therapies, a Dutch firm developing small-molecule treatments for the muscle-wasting disease. Evotec conducts all of Facio’s discovery work.
▸ Veramaris, a joint venture of DSM and Evonik Industries, has picked a Cargill site in Blair, Neb., to build a plant making omega-3 fatty acids from algae. The Blair location already hosts an Evonik fa-
▸ CiVentiChem, a contract drug development firm, has received its first commercial active pharmaceutical ingredient approval from FDA. The firm also says it will open a new manufacturing suite
at its Cary, N.C., site next month. ▸ Kaneka will spend $15 million to buy Applied Poleramic, a California-based formulator of resins used in the aerospace industry. Kaneka, of Japan, says it wants to build a $200 million-per-year aerospace composites business. ▸ Heptares Therapeutics will relocate the 107 people it employs in Welwyn Garden City, England, to nearby Cambridge in the next 12–18 months. The biotech firm will occupy a building in Granta Park that Gilead Sciences is vacating.
JUNE 26, 2017 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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