Business Concentrates DRUG DEVELOPMENT
▸ Dow will sell polymer unit to SK As part of its bid to get its merger with DuPont past antitrust regulators, Dow Chemical has agreed to sell its Primacor ethylene acrylic acid (EAA) copolymers business to South Korea’s SK Global Chemical for $370 million. The deal includes plants in Freeport, Texas, and Tarragona, Spain. DuPont operates an EAA business under the Nucrel name. Such polymers act as an adhesive layer in packages containing metal foil. The two companies continue to negotiate with regulators about their combined agricultural businesses.—ALEX TULLO
PETROCHEMICALS
▸ Enterprise to build isobutylene plant Enterprise Products Partners plans to build an isobutane dehydrogenation plant at its facility in Mont Belvieu, Texas. The plant will open by 2019 and have 425,000 metric tons of annual isobutylene capacity. Increased use of shale-derived ethane as a feedstock for ethylene crackers has diminished the availability of C4 chemicals, Enterprise says. The firm will convert isobutylene to octane and sell it for other chemical applications. Enterprise is already building a propane dehydrogenation plant at the site.—ALEX TULLO
BIOBASED MATERIALS
▸ Partners to develop itaconic polymers Itaconix, a U.S. subsidiary of the U.K.-based polymer developer Revolymer, is working with two specialty chemical companies to develop polymers O based on fermentaOH tion-derived itaconic HO acid. With Croda, O Itaconix will advance Itaconic acid the polymer Zinador 22L as an odor-removing additive for household, municipal, animal, and industrial applications. With AkzoNobel, Itaconix will work on biobased polymers for water quality, cleaning, and hygiene uses. Akzo-
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C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | FEBRUARY 6, 2017
Drugmakers fund research at U.K. schools Two drug companies have A rendering of formed collaborations with Novo’s planned leading U.K. universities. Novo research center Nordisk and the University of at Oxford. Oxford are joining to discover novel approaches for treating type 2 diabetes. As part of the agreement Novo will establish a research center at the university that will employ up to 100 scientists. The Danish firm expects to invest about $150 million in the initiative over 10 years. The partners say they seek cross-fertilization of ideas between academics and Novo researchers. Novo already funds 32 fellows at the university as a result of a 2013 pact. Separately, Heptares Therapeutics will fund efforts by Anthony Davenport’s group at the University of Cambridge to discover molecules that target the apelin receptor, a G protein-coupled receptor implicated in a range of cardiovascular diseases.—ALEX SCOTT
Nobel and Revolymer already have a marine coating project.—ALEX SCOTT
INVESTMENT
▸ SK Capital buys ingredients maker Private equity firm SK Capital has acquired Niacet, a maker of organic salts such as sodium acetate and calcium propionate used as buffering agents, flavor ingredients, and bakery preservatives. The firm employs 190 people in Niagara Falls, N.Y., and Tiel, the Netherlands. SK Capital says the purchase of the business, once owned by Union Carbide but operated since 1978 by the Brannen family, will complement its expertise in specialty ingredients.—MARC REISCH
PUBLIC HEALTH
▸ DuPont R&D labs get new tenant Nemours Children’s Health is moving 68 scientists into DuPont’s Experimental Station in Wilmington, Del. The research-
ers will occupy nearly 9,000 m2 on two floors of Building 400, where DuPont scientists developed the blood pressure drug Cozaar. There, Nemours’ scientists will research pediatric cancer, lung disease, neurology, and other areas. Last month, DuPont said it would put $200 million into the Experimental Station as it seeks to attract non-DuPont tenants to the facility. Nemours was founded in 1936 through an endowment from Alfred I. DuPont.—ALEX
TULLO
EMPLOYMENT
▸ GE will lay off researchers General Electric is laying off researchers at its Global Research Center in Niskayuna, N.Y., and elsewhere as it refocuses R&D on its digital businesses. The company won’t disclose how many employees it is axing—a report in a local paper put the number as high as 160—or the areas in which they work. “We are limiting research that is not central to GE’s strategy and investing in areas such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and machine learning,” the company says, adding that “chemistry will continue to be part of
CREDIT: NOVO NORDISK
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
DRUG DEVELOPMENT
our research mix.” GE sold its most chemistry-intensive business, GE Plastics, to Saudi Basic Industries in 2007.—ALEX TULLO
▸ Incyte, Calithera join for arginase inhibitor
START-UPS
▸ Vividion launches out of Scripps
GM and Honda execs bond over a fuel cell.
Vividion Therapeutics has launched based on small-molecule drug discovery technology from three Scripps Research Institute scientists. Backed by $50 million in venture capital funding, Vividion combines a platform for proteome-wide ligand and target discovery from Benjamin F. Cravatt with synthetic chemistry from Phil S. Baran and Jin-Quan Yu. Much drug discovery involves screening of compound libraries using a single target-specific assay. Vividion, in contrast, evaluates compounds in native biological systems, such as human immunocytes and cancer cell lines, so promising protein-ligand interactions are identified amid the entire proteome and in the context of actual protein function.—ANN THAYER
HYDROGEN POWER
▸ GM and Honda pair up for fuel cells
CREDIT: GENERAL MOTORS
General Motors and Honda have formed a joint venture to produce hydrogen fuel cells to power future vehicles from both firms. The fuel cells will be produced in
Brownstown, Mich., where GM makes battery packs. The two will spend $85 million on the venture, which is expected to open around 2020 and create 100 new jobs. GM and Honda have been working together since 2013 to make fuel cells more affordable. Honda started selling its first fuel-cell car, the Clarity, to U.S. customers in December.—MELODY BOMGARDNER
INSTRUMENTATION
▸ Bruker bolts on new capabilities Instrument maker Bruker has completed transactions to advance its position in nanomaterials and biomedical imaging. In one deal, Bruker acquired Minnesota-based Hysitron, a maker of nanomechanical test equipment with annual sales of about $20 million. Separately, Bruker entered a multiyear agreement giving it nonexclusive rights to Tomography Corp.’s imaging algorithms. Bruker says the software will expand applications for its micro- and nanotomography scanners.—MARC REISCH
Incyte and Calithera Biosciences will work together to develop Calithera’s small-molecule arginase inhibitor CB-1158. Incyte will pay Calithera $45 million up front and make an $8 million equity investment. Calithera could receive up to $750 million in milestone payments. The molecule is being tested alone in early-stage hematology and oncology trials. The companies also expect to explore its use in combination with immuno-oncology agents such as anti-PD-1 therapies.—ANN THAYER
NUCLEIC ACIDS
▸ Twist responds to Agilent lawsuit Synthetic DNA producer Twist Bioscience responded in California state court to Agilent Technologies’ claims that Twist cofounder Emily Leproust stole trade secrets from Agilent. Leproust is a former Agilent chemistry R&D director. Twist says that its DNA synthesis technology started with two engineers, Bill Banyai and Bill Beck, who met in 2008. Denying Agilent’s claim that Leproust used Agilent resources to develop the technology, Twist says Leproust worked loyally at Agilent until she resigned in April 2013 to join the two engineers in launching Twist.—MICHAEL MCCOY
Business Roundup
obesity-associated type 2 diabetes.
partner Amgen in exchange for higher royalties from Amgen.
▸ Celanese will acquire the nylon compounding business of the Israeli firm Nilit for an undisclosed sum. Celanese says the purchase will extend its role as a supplier of engineered materials.
$229 million for a 19.5% stake in Taiyo Holdings, a maker of materials used in printed circuit boards. Taiyo employs 1,200 people and recorded sales of $440 million in its latest fiscal year.
▸ Spero Therapeutics has acquired a set of antibacterial candidates from Pro Bono Bio’s Cantab Anti Infectives subsidiary. They join two compounds Spero is developing to treat Gram-negative bacterial infections.
▸ Chemtura’s Great Lakes Solutions business has opened a 1,000-m2 pilot plant at its bromine products facility in El Dorado, Ark. The company says the new plant will create six high-paying R&D jobs.
▸ Janssen R&D has formed two microbiome science collaborations. With DayTwo and Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, Janssen will pursue microbiome-based treatments for metabolic disorders. And it is backing Caelus Health, a Belgian firm developing treatments for
▸ Astellas Pharma has licensed Auration Biotech’s AU-935, a treatment for eardrum perforation that is based on heparin-binding epidermal growth factor-like growth factor. The drug is being developed as a topical application to replace surgery.
▸ DIC, the Japanese dyes and pigments producer, will pay
▸ Cytokinetics has sold some of the potential royalties on omecamtiv mecarbil, an investigational heart drug, to Royalty Pharma for $90 million. Cytokinetics put $40 million of the cash into Phase III development of the drug with its
▸ Takeda Pharmaceutical will pay Exelixis $50 million for rights to develop cabozantinib, Exelixis’s leading oncology medicine, in Japan. Cabozantinib was approved in the U.S. last year for the treatment of advanced renal cell carcinoma.
FEBRUARY 6, 2017 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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