Business Concentrates ASIA
▸ DuPont cultivates cheese makers DuPont plans to invest $60 million in three European plants to expand fermentation of cultures for yogurt and cheese. The firm says capacity additions in Sassenage and Epernon, France, and Niebüll, Germany, will meet demand for an expected increase in dairy consumption over the next five years. In the U.S., DuPont says it plans to expand a cheese laboratory in Kansas City, Mo. Just two months ago, the company said it will spend $100 million to bulk up probiotics production in the U.S.—MARC REISCH
INVESTMENT
▸ Mitsubishi Rayon buys SGL carbon fiber Germany’s SGL Carbon is selling its carbon fiber plant in Evanston, Wyo., to Mitsubishi Rayon. The Japanese firm says the plant, with a capacity of 1,000 metric tons annually, will help it meet burgeoning demand for the fiber to make wind turbines and auto body components. SGL says the sale, to be completed by the end of April, allows it to concentrate production at larger and more efficient units in Moses Lake, Wash., and Muir of Ord, Scotland.—MARC REISCH
PETROCHEMICALS
▸ Arkema to modernize acrylic acid plant Arkema is spending $90 million on upgrades to its acrylic acid complex in Clear Lake, Texas. The company is replacing two aging reactors, each with 45,000 met-
Air Products wants to buy Yingde Gases Air Products & Chemicals has sent a letter to the board of the Chinese industrial gas maker Yingde Gases expressing its interest in buying the firm. Yingde is considering the offer, and the two companies have made confidentiality commitments to each other. Yingde had 2015 sales of about $1.1 billion and operating profits of nearly $300 million. Most of its sales come from supplying oxygen, nitrogen, and argon on-site to industrial customers. Air Products had $1.2 billion in Chinese sales in its most recent fiscal year. Air Products may be exploiting intrigue at Yingde, where directors are feuding over a stock offering meant to pay off debt. Some directors worry a stock sale would yield control to OriginWater, an investor in the firm. Yingde has also received an expression of interest from a Hong Kong-based private equity firm, Stellars Capital.—ALEX TULLO
ric tons of annual capacity, with a single 90,000-metric-ton train. The project will be completed by mid-2019. Arkema calls itself the second-largest acrylic acid maker in North America, after BASF.—ALEX TULLO
AWARDS
▸ Ghasemi to receive Palladium award
PHARMACEUTICALS Seifi Ghasemi, CEO of Air Products & Chemicals and chairman of Versum Materials, will receive the Palladium Medal from the Société de Chimie Industrielle. He will get the award, which recognizes contributions to the chemical industry, at a dinner in his honor at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City on June 1. Ghasemi was previously CEO of Rockwood Holdings and president of BOC Gases Americas.—MARC
REISCH Arkema will modernize this acrylic acid plant in Texas.
AGRICULTURE
▸ Agrimetis raises $23.5 million Agrimetis, a biotechnology firm developing crop protection chemicals, has raised $23.5 million in a second round of venture funding. Investors included
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C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | JANUARY 16, 2017
Anterra Capital and Syngenta Ventures. The Maryland-based firm, one of C&EN’s 10 Start-ups to Watch last year, identifies target chemicals by searching the scientific literature and working with external researchers. It then uses organic chemistry and synthetic biology tools to synthesize new molecules with improved effectiveness. Its most advanced candidate is an herbicide.—MELODY BOMGARDNER
▸ Allergan targets nerves and the gut Allergan has purchased an option to acquire Lysosomal Therapeutics (LTI), a biotech firm focused on neurodegeneration. Allergan would strike the deal following completion of a Phase 1b trial of LTI’s lead compound, LTI-291, a small-molecule targeting lysosomal storage diseases, including Parkinson’s. Allergan separately signed an agreement granting it worldwide rights to Assembly Biosciences’ microbiome gastrointestinal program, including preclinical compounds targeting ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. Allergan will pay Assembly $50 million upfront.—RICK MULLIN
INSTRUMENTATION
▸ Illumina cuts stake in Grail, strikes deals Illumina intends to reduce its ownership stake in the blood-based cancer detection
CREDIT: ARKEMA (ACRYLIC ACID PLANT); BRAD BOWER/AIR PRODUCTS(GHASEMI)
FOOD INGREDIENTS
firm Grail to below 20%. Illumina, a gene sequencing equipment maker, made the decision in light of a potential $1 billion investment in Grail by private investors. Illumina, which created Grail in early 2016 with other investors, says Grail will become one of its largest customers. Separately, Illumina has debuted its NovaSeq gene sequencing technology, which it expects to enable $100 whole genome sequencing. With Bio-Rad, it has launched a new system for single-cell analysis. Illumina also has new informatics deals with IBM Watson Health and Philips.—
ANN THAYER
INFECTIOUS DISEASE
▸ Biotech bigs float R&D venture Former Biogen CEO George Scangos is heading a team of drug industry veterans behind Vir Biotechnology, a new company that seeks treatments for infectious disease. The group hopes to employ immune programming to manipulate pathogen-host interactions. Lead investors include Arch Venture Partners and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Arch, whose co-founder Robert Nelsen conceived of Vir, has committed to invest $150 million. Nelsen says he expects Vir to fund academic research, conduct its own R&D, and spend up to $100 million on individual in-licensing deals.—RICK MULLIN
DRUG DISCOVERY
▸ Daiichi shuts Indian R&D center Daiichi Sankyo will close its research unit in Gurgaon, near New Delhi, India. The move will affect 170 people, most of whom are researchers focused on infectious disease and inflammation. Last February, Daiichi closed its R&D center in Gerrards Cross, England, a move that impacted 80 people. The Indian research unit is a legacy from Daiichi’s 2008 acquisition of Ranbaxy Laboratories. When Daiichi Sankyo sold Ranbaxy to Sun Pharmaceutical Industries in 2015, it retained the operation as a separate subsidiary.—JEAN FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
Merck will add more biodevelopment centers like the one here in Martillac, France.
BIOLOGICS
▸ Celgene, Sanofi eye autoimmune disease
▸ Global bioprocessing boost for Merck Merck KGaA is planning to build biologic drug development centers near Boston and Shanghai following the success of a similar center in Martillac, France. The new centers will provide bioprocessing services including cell line development, process development, and non-Good Manufacturing Process (GMP) clinical production. Additionally, Merck will beef up the Martillac center by adding a single-use GMP facility for customers. “We are seeing an increasing
Business Roundup
CREDIT: MERCK
▸ Air Liquide’s Seppic subsidiary has acquired the Serdex botanical active ingredients division of Bayer. Air Liquide says Serdex, which had sales last year of about $8 million, complements BiotechMarine, a botanicals business it acquired in 2013. ▸ Dow Chemical has sold its Safechem business to the private equity firm CBPE Capital for an undisclosed sum. Safechem says it serves more than 7,500 dry cleaning and other customers worldwide with chlorinated solvent management services.
▸ Braskem will sell quantiQ, Brazil’s largest chemical distributor, to the rival distributor GTM for about $170 million. QuantiQ is owned by the private equity firm Advent International. ▸ Baerlocher is adding a third reactor for calcium, zinc, sodium and other metal stearates at its plant in Cincinnati. Metal stearates are added to plastics as acid scavengers, stabilizers, lubricants, water repellants, and release agents. ▸ Toray Industries has formed a joint venture with
global demand for end-to-end process development solutions,” says Udit Batra, CEO of MilliporeSigma, Merck’s life sciences business.—ALEX SCOTT
BIOTECHNOLOGY
At the start of the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco last week (see page 9), Celgene and Sanofi both announced partnerships in autoimmune disease. Celgene is paying privately-held Anokion $45 million up front for access to its antigen engineering technology in a deal that includes an option to purchase the biotech firm. Sanofi, meanwhile, will pay an undisclosed sum for rights to ImmuNext’s INX021, a CD40L antibody in preclinical development with potential to treat a swath of autoimmune diseases. Milestone payments could reach $500 million.—LISA JARVIS
Mitsui Sugar to use water treatment membranes in a new cellulosic sugar production system. The venture will construct a demonstration plant in Thailand that will process 15 metric tons of bagasse per day to produce sugar, polyphenols, and oligosaccharides.
▸ 3M will sell its nickel-manganese-cobalt battery cathode intellectual property to Umicore, a materials technology firm, and will focus on silicon anodes. The firms say the cathode and anode technologies may together substantially increase battery life.
▸ Silence Therapeutics, an RNA-based drug firm in England, has spent $9.6 million for an 8.4% stake in Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals. Like Silence, California-based Arrowhead develops gene-silencing drugs for hard-totreat diseases using a range of RNA chemistries and delivery methods.
▸ Sarepta Therapeutics has licensed a Galgt2 gene therapy program developed by Paul Martin, a researcher at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, for use in developing a Duchenne muscular dystrophy treatment. Sarepta’s DMD drug eteplirsen won FDA approval last year.
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