Business Concentrates DRUG DEVELOPMENT
▸ Huntsman takes Albemarle to court Huntsman Corp. has filed suit over what it claims was misrepresentation of red and yellow inorganic pigment technology in advance of its $1.1 billion purchase of Rockwood Holdings’ pigments business in 2014. Huntsman’s complaint, filed in the New York State Supreme Court, names as defendants Rockwood; Seifi Ghasemi, Rockwood’s CEO at the time; and Albemarle, which bought the rest of Rockwood in 2015. Huntsman alleges that Rockwood misled it about an iron oxide pigment technology intended to reduce reliance on expensive raw materials from China. A plant that Rockwood was building in Augusta, Ga., was supposed to save $30 million in annual production costs. Huntsman says Rockwood knew that a similar plant in Turin, Italy, was flawed. Albemarle says it doesn’t comment on active litigation.—ALEX TULLO
Seattle Genetics invests in embattled Immunomedics Seattle Genetics will pay up to $2 billion to license IMMU-132, the lead antibody-drug conjugate being developed by Immunomedics. The deal includes $250 million up front for licensing as well as $15 million for a nearly 3% equity stake in the New Jersey-based firm. In return, Seattle Genetics will take on development, manufacturing, and commercialization of sacituzumab govitecan (IMMU-132), which targets TROP-2 in several solid tumors. IMMU-132 is in a Phase I/II trial for breast cancer and has breakthrough therapy designation from FDA. The deal comes at a time when Immunomedics’ lead shareholder, the venture capital firm venBio, is seeking to replace board members and eventually oust Immunomedics founder and chair David Goldenberg and his wife, CEO Cynthia Sullivan. VenBio sees the Seattle Genetics deal as a tactic to delay the outcome of a shareholder vote. VenBio has filed a motion in the Delaware Court of Chancery for an injunction to stop Immunomedics from closing the deal until a new board is elected that can review it and other options.—ANN THAYER
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
agrochemicals, and personal care.—JEAN-
▸ Air Products spars with takeover target
FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
ENERGY STORAGE
▸ Johnson invests in battery recycler Car battery maker Johnson Controls is buying a 5% stake in the lead-acid battery recycling firm Aqua Metals. At a plant in McCarran, Nev., Aqua Metals uses an elec-
In a letter to the management of China’s Yingde Gases, Air Products & Chemicals complains it is not able to audit the company ahead of the acquisition of Yingde that Air Products proposed last month. Instead, Air Products notes, Yingde has “placed obstacles in the path of our beginning the diligence process.” Air Products is also vexed by a gag order, requested by Yingde, that would prevent the U.S. firm from discussing the acquisition with its shareholders. A Yingde press release claiming that the two companies are working closely on the proposed acquisition prompted Air Products’ letter.—JEAN-FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
SPECIALTY CHEMICALS
▸ Tata invests in fiber and silica trochemical process Lead cascades out to recover lead from of Aqua Metals’ used batteries. The electrochemical company says the cells. process saves energy versus the current smelting process. Johnson will license Aqua Metals’ technology, supply it with batteries, and purchase recovered lead ingot.—ALEX TULLO
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Tata Chemicals will spend $40 million to build a plant in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh that makes soluble fiber for use in infant nutrition and nutraceutical products. The company says it developed the fiber technology at its R&D center in Pune, India. Separately, Tata will invest $44 million to build a dispersible silica plant in the state of Gujarat. The material is used in industries such as rubber, coatings,
ELECTRONIC MATERIALS
▸ Ube advances flexible semiconductor Ube Industries has signed a licensing and supply agreement with Japan’s Future Ink over a new n-type organic semiconductor material that is soluble in organic solvents and suitable for printing. Under the deal, Future Ink will produce the material and supply it to Ube, which will further develop and market it. Offering electron mobility levels similar to that of p-type semiconductors, the n-type material is suitable for flexible components such as RFID tags and clothing, Ube claims.—JEAN-FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
BIOBASED CHEMICALS
▸ Green Biologics partners for plasticizers Biobased chemicals firm Green Biologics is collaborating with Jungbunzlauer, a food ingredients and biodegradable products firm, on a route to the plasticizers tributyl citrate and acetyl tributyl citrate. The process will use 1-butanol from Green Biologics and citric acid from Jungbunzlauer, both made via sugar fermentation. Green Biologics delivered its first 1-butanol shipment
CREDIT: AQUA METALS
INORGANIC CHEMICALS
from its facility in Little Falls, Minn., earlier this month.—MELODY BOMGARDNER
OUTSOURCING
▸ Novasep to build viral vector facility The contract manufacturer Novasep will spend $29 million to build a viral vector facility in Seneffe, Belgium. The facility will house two suites equipped with single-use bioreactors ranging in size from 200 to 2,000 L. When completed in early 2019, the site will help meet growing demand for late-clinical-trial and commercial-scale production of viral-vector-based gene and immunotherapies, Novasep says. The company already has lab-scale production at a site in nearby Gosselies.—ANN THAYER
DRUG DISCOVERY
▸ Boehringer, Cornell target the lung Boehringer Ingelheim and Weill Cornell Medicine are joining to discover new approaches to treating chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The three-year collaboration is intended to combine Weill Cornell’s understanding of chronic airway diseases with Boehringer’s expertise in discovering therapies for respiratory disease. The two organizations earlier collaborated on inflammatory bowel disease.—MICHAEL MCCOY
PHARMACEUTICALS
▸ Merck & Co. hits Alzheimer’s setbacks In the latest blow to the hypothesis that amyloid plaques on the brain cause Alzheimer’s disease, Merck & Co. is ending a study of verubecestat after an early review of data showed the compound was not benefiting patients. Verubecestat prevents new amyloid-β plaques from forming by blocking the enzyme β-secretase. The Phase II/III
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study being halted tested verubecestat in people with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease, a population that could already have too much plaque for the drug to be useful. Merck will continue a Phase III study of the drug in people with a very early form of Alzheimer’s.—LISA JARVIS
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
▸ Thermo Fisher buys process systems maker Thermo Fisher Scientific plans to buy Finesse Solutions, a maker of process sen-
Business Roundup ▸ DuPont will sell the Hotel DuPont in Wilmington, Del., to the Buccini/Pollin Group real estate firm. Separately, DuPont says it plans to sell the DuPont Country Club on the outskirts of Wilmington.
rican firms—Unique Flavors and Unique Food Solutions— for $6.7 million. The Unique companies employ 64 people and have annual sales of sweet and savory flavors of about $9 million.
▸ Archroma will expand production of tetrasulfonated optical brightening agents, commonly used in papermaking, at its site in Prat del Llobregat, Spain. The new capacity is due to come on-line by mid-May.
▸ Novo will invest $95 million in the German contract research firm Evotec, resulting in ownership of about 8.9%. Novo, which manages assets for the Novo Nordisk Foundation, says it anticipates growth in external innovation and outsourcing in the drug industry.
▸ Frutarom Industries has agreed to buy two South Af-
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sors, controllers, and software for biopharmaceutical production with annual sales of $50 million. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. A key motivator behind the acquisition is Finesse’s development of a universal control system that “will combine seamlessly with our existing single-use technologies,” Thermo Fisher CEO Marc N. Casper says.—MARC REISCH
BUSINESS
▸ Ineos advances plans for off-road car Ineos, the European petrochemicals giant, plans to start producing an off-road vehicle to replace the defunct Land Rover Defender. After a sixmonth feasibility study, the firm says it will spend “many hundreds of millions” of dollars to introduce the vehicle, which it hopes to build in the U.K. “We want to Ratcliffe with one build the world’s of the Land Rover purest 4 x 4 and Defenders he wants are aiming it at to replace. explorers, farmers, and off-road enthusiasts across the globe,” says Jim Ratcliffe, Ineos’s chair and a 4 x 4 enthusiast.—ALEX SCOTT
▸ BASF will partner with the European Space Agency to evaluate uses of satellite data for agriculture. Real-time satellite information can help growers optimize fertilizer and water use and predict crop yields, BASF says.
tered a $10 million partnership with the engineering firm Christof Industries to expand production of protein and oil from soldier fly larvae. The two firms plan to build up to 25 fly farms a year to convert organic waste into feed products.
▸ Daiichi Sankyo will dissolve one of its Japanese research subsidiaries, Asubio Pharma, and absorb its 150 employees elsewhere in the company. Daiichi, which has been reorganizing its R&D operations, shut down an Indian R&D center in January.
▸ Akebia Therapeutics has licensed from Johnson & Johnson compounds targeting hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF), a regulator in red blood cell production. For $1 million, Akebia gains rights to a preclinical compound for inflammatory bowel disease and a library of other HIF pathway molecules. J&J gets an option to buy a stake in Akebia.
▸ AgriProtein, a South African animal feed start-up, has en-
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