LITIGATION
▸ Oregon sues Monsanto over PCBs The State of Oregon has filed a suit in an Oregon state court seeking over $100 million from Monsanto for damages and cleanup costs associated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The suit alleges that much of Oregon’s environment is contaminated with slow-to-degrade, toxic PCBs, once widely used as a dielectric fluid in electric transformers. Monsanto, which hasn’t made PCBs since 1977, calls the suit baseless. Other jurisdictions suing Monsanto over PCB damages include Washington State; Portland, Ore.; and Oakland, Calif.—MARC REISCH
BIOTECHNOLOGY
▸ Zymergen acquires Radiant Bay Area industrial biotechnology start-up Zymergen has acquired Radiant Genomics, a functional metagenomics research firm. Functional metagenomics uses libraries of genomes from many species of microbes, commonly from environmental sampling, and screens the diverse DNA samples for specific genes or traits that can produce natural products of interest. In contrast, most biotechnology products today are
made with the help of a small number of microbes that can be grown in the lab. Zymergen plans to integrate the libraries with its machine-learning and manufacturing platform.—MELODY BOMGARDNER
▸ AMRI names Michael Mulhern CEO Four months after being taken private by private equity firms, Albany Molecular Research Inc. (AMRI) announced that Michael Mulhern will replace William S. Marth as CEO. Mulhern was previously CEO of Sterigenics International, a specialist in sterilization, gamma technologies, and medical isotopes owned by GTCR, the investment firm that acquired AMRI in partnership with the Carlyle Group. Marth, who replaced the company’s founder, Tom D’Ambra, in 2013, will remain with the company in an advisory role, according to AMRI.—RICK MULLIN
BIOLOGICS
▸ Wacker to make active for Chiesi drug Wacker Biotech will produce reteplase, the active ingredient in Retavase, for the Italian drug company Chiesi, which is relaunching
Business Roundup
C R E D I T: WAC K ER C H E MI E
▸ Asahi Kasei will spend about $70 million to expand its lithium-ion battery separator plants in Shiga, Japan, and North Carolina. In Japan, it will increase its annual Hipore brand separators capacity by 90 million m2 by 2020, and in North Carolina, it will boost its Celgard separator plant by 150 million m2 later this year. ▸ Mosaic has completed the purchase of Vale Fertilizantes. The purchase of the Brazilian fertilizer company gives Mosaic another 7,300 employees, doubling the size of its workforce.
FDA recently inspected this Wacker plant in Halle, Germany.
OUTSOURCING
▸ Kemin Industries has agreed to acquire Garmon Chemicals, a Republic of San Marino-based maker of environmentally friendly textile chemicals. The acquisition opens a new business front for family-owned Kemin, which is a maker of food, feed, and health-related products. ▸ Evonik Industries and China’s Fufeng Group have entered into a production agreement for l-threonine, used in animal feed. Fufeng will toll manufacture the amino acid for Evonik in a fermentation plant using Evonik technology.
the drug in the U.S. Reteplase is a recombinant nonglycosylated form of human tissue plasminogen activator used to dissolve blood clots. Wacker will produce the drug at its plant in Halle, Germany, which was recently inspected by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. Roche previously made the active for Chiesi.—MICHAEL MCCOY
PHARMACEUTICALS
▸ Pfizer steps up academic partnering Pfizer is launching an early-stage academic partnership program it calls Innovative Target Exploration Network, focused on building relationships with academic researchers before identifying preclinical candidates. Pfizer named the University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center as its initial partners under the program. ITEN is a follow-up to Pfizer’s Centers for Therapeutic Innovation, an academic and institutional research collaboration model that picked up later-stage development candidates.—RICK MULLIN
▸ Cleveland Potash, a subsidiary of Israel Chemicals, is set to cease potash mining in Boulby, England, by the end of June, which will cause the loss of about 230 jobs. The firm will continue to mine rock salt and polysulphate at the site. ▸ Juvenescence, a company focused on therapeutics for aging, has raised $12.3 million in a seed round of funding. The company launched in March 2017 and subsequently signed a license to acquire five compound families from Insilico Medicine. ▸ Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and Sanofi are restructuring an RNA interference drugs alliance. Alnylam will get
rights to RNAi compounds being developed for the treatment of transthyretin amyloidosis. Sanofi will get rights to fitusiran, an RNAi therapeutic in development for treating hemophilia A and B. The rest of their alliance, formed in 2014, remains the same. ▸ Cypralis and Gilead Sciences have signed an agreement under which Cypralis will obtain exclusive rights to macrocyclic inhibitors of peptide bond isomerases targeting degenerative diseases. The deal follows a drug discovery collaboration between Selcia and Gilead on liver disease research in which Selcia’s rights were transferred to Cypralis.
JANUARY 15, 2018 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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