Business Concentrates ▸ FTC approves gas merger, with conditions The Federal Trade Commission has approved Air Liquide’s $13.4 billion purchase of Airgas, allowing the deal to close this week. However, the U.S. antitrust regulator is demanding the firms divest assets that give them too hefty a market share in some sectors of industrial gas. FTC says Air Liquide must divest 12 of its own air separation units as well as four from Airgas. Air Liquide operates 49 air separation units around the U.S.; Airgas runs 17. Because Air Liquide and Airgas are the only nitrous oxide producers in the U.S. and Canada, with a total of five plants, FTC wants Air Liquide to sell two plants. Air Liquide also needs to dispose of a few of its dry ice and liquid CO2 facilities.—ALEX TULLO
ENVIRONMENT
▸ Spanish firm replaces mercury-cell process To comply with European legislation, the Spanish basic chemicals producer Ercros will close its mercury-cell chlor-alkali plants, which have a combined annual capacity of 213,000 metric tons, by the end of 2017. It will replace the capacity with a 45,000-metric-ton plant based on membrane technology. The firm says the membrane-based plant will cost $60 million and open in 2018. Ercros says it does not plan to replace all of the mercury capacity because its biggest customer, Covestro, plans to close its Spanish isocyanate plant, which consumes chlor-alkali.—ALEX SCOTT
FINANCES
▸ Metabolix considering strategic alternatives Metabolix, a developer of renewable polyhydroxyalkanoate polymers, is considering a sale of its core polymers business as well as a crop yield technology. The company says it is already in discussions regarding the polymers unit. Metabolix is down to about $5.3 million in cash. It raised $14.7 million from stock offerings in 2015 but burned through $21.9 million that same year. Soon
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C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | MAY 23, 2016
PHARMACEUTICALS
Pfizer to acquire Anacor Just a month after abandoning its merger with Allergan, Pfizer will pay roughly $5.2 billion to acquire Anacor Pharmaceuticals, a biotech firm that specializes in developing boron-containing small-molecule therapeutics. Anacor already has one approved drug, the antifungal Kerydin, but the cenO terpiece of the acquisition is crisaborole, a topical treatO ment for eczema that is currently under FDA review. B Because a novel eczema treatment has not been ap- NC proved in more than 15 years, crisaborole could deliver OH peak annual sales of $2 billion or more, Pfizer says. It expects Crisaborole FDA to give crisaborole the green light by January. Founded in 2002, Anacor seeks to take advantage of boron’s empty p orbital, which can form coordinate covalent bonds, a feature that stabilizes a drug’s interaction with its target. For Pfizer, the deal is its first after its attempt to buy Allergan for $160 billion. Pfizer dropped the merger last month after an unfavorable tax rule change by the Department of the Treasury. The company is expected to make more relatively modest purchases to bolster its new product portfolio as it contemplates splitting into two separate entities, one focused on innovative, or patent-protected, products and the other on established products.—LISA JARVIS
after announcing the potential divestitures, the company signed a licensing agreement with medical device maker Tepha that will garner it a $2 million lump-sum payment.—
a foam raw material, based on technology licensed from Cornell University chemistry professor Geoffrey W. Coates. Ford
ALEX TULLO
SUSTAINABILITY
▸ Teijin takes loss on clothing recycling Japan’s Teijin will take a $52 million loss on a polyester recycling joint venture in China. The venture, with Jinggong Holding Group, is working to build a business in turning polyester fiber scraps and used clothes back into chemicals. But volatility in polyester raw material prices, low crude oil prices, and the slowing Chinese economy have hampered profitability, Teijin says. The company did not say if it will shutter the plant, which has a capacity of 20,000 metric tons per year.—MELODY BOMGARDNER
GREEN CHEMISTRY
▸ Ford cars to use CO2-based polyols In what it calls an auto industry first, Ford Motor is testing new polyurethane foams made with carbon dioxide. The company is working with the start-up Novomer, which produces CO2-containing polyols,
Ford researchers are testing foams made with a CO2-based polyol. sees the foams going into production cars within five years and eventually reducing petroleum use by more than 272 million kg annually.—MICHAEL MCCOY
MATERIALS
▸ SK, Japanese partner form precursor venture South Korea’s SK Materials and Japan’s Tri Chemical Laboratories are forming a joint venture that will produce organometallic precursors used in semiconductor manufacturing. To be owned 65% by SK and 35% by Tri Chemical, the venture will build a plant in Sejong, South Korea. Tri Chemical claims to be the first company to mass-produce zirconium-containing precursors, used to deposit thin zirconium oxide films in memory chips.—JEAN-FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
CREDIT: FORD
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
PEOPLE
▸ New leaders named at Dow Corning Mauro Gregorio will become CEO of Dow Corning once Dow Chemical completes its $4.8 billion purchase of Corning’s share of the joint venture. Gregorio is the Dow vice president leading the integration of the silicones producer into Dow. Current Dow Corning Chairman and CEO Robert Hansen Gregorio plans to retire after a transition period following completion of the deal in June.—MARC REISCH
DRUG DEVELOPMENT
▸ Celgene, Agios in cell metabolism deal Celgene is paying $200 million to collaborate with Agios Pharmaceuticals in the area of immuno-oncology. The companies will work on altering the metabolic state of immune cells to help them attack cancers. Agios will conduct drug discovery and early development, while Celgene has the
right to opt into programs through Phase I trials for at least $30 million each. Agios can also earn up to $169 million in milestone payments for each program. Celgene can license inflammation or autoimmune programs.—ANN THAYER
ONCOLOGY
▸ Janssen, MacroGenics sign second pact Janssen, the pharmaceutical arm of Johnson & Johnson, will pay MacroGenics $75 million to license the bispecific antibody MGD015. In preclinical studies, MGD015 blocks both CD3 and an undisclosed tumor target with the goal of redirecting T cells to kill cells that overexpress the undisclosed antigen. This is the second pact between Janssen and MacroGenics. The companies are already developing MGD011, a bispecific molecule targeting CD19 and CD3, as a blood cancer treatment.—LISA JARVIS
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
▸ Ajinomoto sues over tryptophan patents The Japanese amino acid producer Ajinomoto has sued South Korean competitor CJ CheilJedang for infringing
Business Roundup
CREDIT: DOW CHEMICAL
▸ Ineos has green-lit plans to build a 420,000-metric-tonper-year linear α-olefin plant at its Chocolate Bayou, Texas, site by 2018. Strong market prospects for α-olefins and cheap ethylene on the Gulf Coast prompted the company to increase the size of the plant above its previously planned 350,000 metric tons. ▸ Sol Voltaics, a Swedish start-up, has raised $17 million in a third round of funding, including an investment by the venture arm of King Saud University and a grant from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program. Sol
is developing high-efficiency solar materials based on gallium arsenide nanowires. ▸ Gilson, a laboratory equipment provider, is offering analytical scientists free lab notebook software. The software was unveiled at the Analytica scientific instrumentation show in Munich earlier this month. ▸ Klogene Therapeutics, at work on therapies for Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases, has been awarded a $1.49 million Small Business Innovation Research grant by the National
patents covering the manufacture of animal-feed-grade l-tryptophan. At issue is use of genetically O enhanced Escherichia coli to imOH prove the yield HN NH2 of the essential amino acid. In L-Tryptophan suits filed in U.S. federal court and Germany, Ajinomoto seeks unspecified monetary damages and a halt to CJ’s sale of the product. Ajinomoto recently said it would build a feed-grade tryptophan plant in Eddyville, Iowa, its first in the U.S.—MARC REISCH
MICROBIOME
▸ Seres forms two microbiome pacts Seres Therapeutics will work with scientists at the University of Pennsylvania and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on microbiome therapeutics. With Penn, the start-up will develop bacteria-based treatments for metabolic diseases including urea cycle disorders and inflammatory bowel disease. And Seres aims to support the translation of the cancer center’s discoveries into microbiome therapeutics that help patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and increase the efficacy of checkpoint inhibitors used in immuno-oncology.—
MICHAEL MCCOY
Institute on Aging. The company was cofounded by Boston University biochemistry professor Carmela Abraham.
oppement. Terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed, but the business generated about $270 million in sales last year.
▸ Sanofi-Genzyme BioVentures is collaborating with Johns Hopkins School of Medicine on understanding multiple sclerosis. SGBV has several collaborations in MS research, including one signed last year with Ablynx that is investigating the use of single-domain antibody fragments.
▸ Taiho Pharmaceutical, a Japanese oncology drug developer, has launched a $50 million California-based fund that will invest in oncology startups worldwide. Taiho injected $30 million into Remiges BioPharma Fund in 2014.
▸ Bayer has agreed to sell its North American and European Bayer Garden and Bayer Advanced units, which sells plant care products to gardeners and homeowners, to SBM Dével-
▸ Fosun Pharmaceutical of China has made a nonbinding offer to buy India’s Gland Pharma, reportedly for more than $1 billion. The private equity firm KKR paid $200 million for a minority stake in Gland, a contract manufacturer of injectable drugs, in 2013.
MAY 23, 2016 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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