Business we can't hope to develop all of our products ourselves." Thus Cytogen hopes to add to the three big licensees that it has had for a few years—Eastman Kodak, Farmitalia Carlo Erba, and American Cyanamid. Last month the company completed a license agreement with Clonatec, a French biotechnology company, covering diagnostic products based on proprietary technology developed jointly between Cytogen and the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM) (C&EN, Nov. 28, page 12). This license moves Cytogen away from cancer diagnostics and therapy and covers detection and treatment of viral disease. Under terms of the agreement, Cytogen retains worldwide rights to all therapeutic and prophylactic products as well as exclusive rights to diagnostic products in North America and Japan. Clonatec will get exclusive rights for diagnostic products in Western Europe and
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December 12, 1988 C&EN
French-speaking Third World countries and will share rights to diagnostic products with Cytogen in Latin America and China. McKearn says that the company also will probably be trying to find licensees for other products, including its cardiovascular diagnostic technology. Another financial concern for the company has been its reception by the investment community. The stock market has not been kind to biotechnology companies lately, but it seems to have come down hard on Cytogen. Three years ago, the company's stock was selling for as much as $13 per share and even during the past 12 months, it has been as high as $9.00 per share. Now, however, the stock is trading around $3.00 to $4.00 per share. McKearn says that a big goal is to get the stock price up. Toward that end, he says, the company is planning to try to get its message across to Wall Street analysts. William Storck
Shell offers odor-free hydrocarbon solvents With the recent installation of a solvents hydrotreater at its Deer Park, Tex., manufacturing complex, Shell Chemical is bringing to market four virtually odor-free hydrocarbon solvents aimed primarily at the paints and coatings industry. "Zero-aromatic solvents are becoming the product of choice," says Terry Schieber, Shell solvents business manager. The new products allow the company's mineral spirits and naphtha solvents to be used in markets where they were excluded before, such as in rubber solvents. They will also allow Shell to market its solvents to paint shops or auto coatings plants, where solvent odors often have made facilities objectionable to nearby neighbors. Another factor favoring the market for these products is that California air quality legislation has pushed
Shell—and major competitors Exxon, Unocal, Ashland, and Texaco—in the direction of low- and no-odor solvents. The multimillion-dollar, computer-controlled hydrotreater Shell has installed uses a cobalt catalyst to remove trace organic sulfur compounds. A second stage uses a platinum catalyst to hydrogenate aromatics. Using straight-run naphtha as a feed, the 60 million gal-peryear hydrotreater saturates acetylenes, dienes, and olefins, desulfurizes trace organic components, and removes chlorides, oxygen, nitrogen, trace metals, and dissolved water. As a result, Shell produces solvents that are rich in naphthenes, giving them higher solvent power than their earlier c o u n t e r p a r t s , says Schieber. In addition, benzene levels are reduced to below 20 ppm. Schieber says that hydrotreating eliminates the need for acid or caustic washing to remove odor-causing mercaptans. As a result, the hydro-
treating unit produces a more consistent product that is very low in odor and aromatics. The Deer Park hydrotreater will produce the building-block solvents that will allow Shell to sell more than 100 hydrocarbon solvent blends for customer use. Shell says that two automated tank truck loading terminals allow filling of customer orders 24 hours a day, seven days a week with hydrocarbon and oxygenated solvents. A Los Angeles area facility in Dominguez and a recently commissioned terminal in Sewaren, N.J., provide automated loading and blending services. Schieber says that special identification numbers and access cards allow drivers to load the solvent blends without assistance from Shell personnel. Shell's computer loads only the product ordered and then generates an invoice that is mailed to the customer. Carriers who have been trained and authorized by Shell to operate the system can use
the system to make just-in-time deliveries to Shell's solvent customers, says Schieber. The company also plans to offer its coatings customers an advanced version of its computerized solvent blend calculation software some time during the first quarter of 1989. The advantage to the software is that customers can use the package on their own computers and need not consult Shell on blends if they wish to keep their blend formulas their own secret. Shell research chemist Don Sullivan says that the latest computer program modification will allow up-to-date formulation of solvent blends that take economic and regulatory requirements into account. The software will allow a formulator to predict the properties of a given solvent blend or generate a predicted solvent blend to meet a set of solvent characteristics, he says. Marc Reisch
The difference between our hydrazine and everyone else's. More p u r e hydrazine hydrate. And fewer u n w a n t e d extras. That's what you get from ATOCHEM. Impunties such a s sodium chloride a n d heavy metals a r e virtually non-existent in our hydrazine. Which could l e a d to higher yields a n d fewer p r o b lems in your process. O u r p a t e n t e d production method makes the purity of our hydrazine unique. The differe n c e : We use peroxide comp o u n d s w h e r e others use sodium hypochlorite. And since w e don't start with sodium, w e don't e n d u p with related by-products. We don't give you lots of impurities in our hydrazine, but w e d o give you more of what you're looking for in a supplier.
Like technical service—no o n e knows hydrazine better t h a n w e do. And fast delivery—we'll ship within 24 hours from o n e of our six w a r e h o u s e s throughout the U.S., in a r a n g e of p a c k a g i n g options from small drums to bulk shipments. Stop paying for w h a t you don't want. Specify ultra-pure hydrazine from ATOCHEM. Contact Olivier Meurzec, Marketing Mgr., ATOCHEM INC. Chemical Division, R O . Box 6 0 7 Glen Rock, NI 07452.
For immediate help, call us Toll Free at 1-800-932-0420. I n N I : (201) 652-8575.
ATOCHEM INC. elf aquitaine group r~\T—^""N
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December 12, 1988 C&EN
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