US president Donald Trump has said he believes the White House could override the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) if the national health watchdog goes ahead with mooted plans to toughen standards for approval of a Covid-19 vaccine or an Emergency Use Authorization.
Both the Sanofi/GlaxoSmithKline partnership and US vaccine producer Moderna this week announced new advance purchase agreements with Canada for their Covid-19 vaccine candidates.
Olefins and polyolfins giant Ineos has signed an agreement to buy electricity from Belgian utility Engie’s Norther offshore wind farm in Belgium over a 10-year period. The contract is the largest ever-purchase contract of wind energy for heavy industry in Belgium, the Swiss-headquartered group said.
Evonik and Siemens Energy have commissioned a pilot plant that uses carbon dioxide (CO2) and water to produce chemicals. The plant is the culmination of two years’ work under the Rheticus I and II research projects to develop a technically feasible foundation for artificial photosynthesis using a bioreactor and electrolyzers.
Global chemical company Solvay and specialty chemicals distributor Oqema have entered into a distribution partnership for phenol and phenol derivatives. The partnership covers Solvay’s products hydroquinone, methylhydroquinone, TBC and PTZ for the monomers market, alongside other phenol derivatives for the agrochemicals and pharma markets.
In its third purchase so far this month, IMCD has bought Kokko-Fiber, a Finnish supplier of fiber-reinforced plastic (FRP) composite materials. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. Earlier this month, IMCD also purchased Siyeza in South Africa and Indian excipients distributor Signet.
Amid worries in the American public that an unsafe vaccine could be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration just in time for the Nov. 3 election, the FDA reportedly will impose new, tougher, standards for an emergency authorization (EUA) of a coronavirus vaccine.
OQ Chemicals – formerly Oxea – has agreed to license its proprietary technology for the production of ethylene and propylene derivatives to Oman’s Duqm Refinery and Petrochemicals Industries Company (DRPIC).
Clariant has announced it will build a new catalyst plant in China, its third in the country, as the Swiss group strives to strengthen its existing network.
Sanofi and GSK have agreed a deal with the EU to supply up to 300 million doses of their recombinant protein-based Covd-19 vaccine pending regulatory approval, which is expected sometime in the first half of 2021.
German biotech BioNTech has signed a share purchase agreement with Novartis to acquire the Swiss drugmaker’s GMP-certified manufacturing facility in Marburg, Germany. The deal will expand the Mainz-based company’s Covid-19 vaccine production capability by up to 750 million doses per year, or over 60 million doses per month, when fully operational.
Mylan has agreed to buy the related intellectual property and commercialization rights of Aspen Pharmacare’s European thrombosis business for €641.9 million. The company will use proceeds from the sale to pay down debt.
Petronas Chemicals Group is to acquire 50% of Germany-based PCC’s share in PCC Oxyalkylates Malaysia, thereby entering the growing oxyalkylates market. The companies will build a plant at the Kerteh Integrated Petrochemical Complex in Terengganu. Start-up is due in 2023.
After a roller coaster ride entailing months of on again-off again negotiations with US president Donald Trump over drug prices, the country’s pharmaceutical industry is licking its wounds and gearing up for a fight.
Brazilian petrochemical group Braskem has started up a 450,000 t/y PP plant in LaPorte, Texas, USA. The facility, named Delta, produces a variety of grades, including homopolymers, impact copolymers and random copolymers.
A three-judge federal panel has temporarily blocked a US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) move aimed at reversing the stricter standards for methane emissions in the oil and gas sector passed by the administration of US president Barack Obama. The ruling will temporarily halt the rollback while the court deliberates on whether it can go ahead.
In line with its geographical expansion strategy, French specialty chemicals producer Arkema’s adhesive solutions segment Bostik has started up a new world-scale industrial adhesives plant in Japan to supply customers in the region’s steadily growing markets.
Two weeks after buying South Africa’s Siyeza, IMCD has turned its sights to India where it has agreed to buy local excipients distributor Signet. Financial terms of the deal, which IMCD said will provide a “significant” platform for further growth in India and Asia-Pacific, were not disclosed.
Germany’s Henkel has announced plans to invest $23 million to expand its range of Dial liquid hand soap and hand sanitizers in the US. The company will install new equipment and carry out a series of improvements that will increase production at its sites in Geneva, New York and West Hazleton, Pennsylvania.
The Covid-19 initiative of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has awarded a milestone-based grant of up to €375 million for BioNTech, the Mainz, Germany-based biotech, to support its efforts to develop a commercially available vaccine against the virus.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is deliberating whether to allow AstraZeneca to resume its recently begun Phase 3 US clinical trial of the adenovirus-based Covid-19 vaccine it is developing for Oxford University. An adverse event last week caused the – meanwhile resumed – UK study to be paused,
Pharmaceuticals heavyweight Novartis is changing the name of its previously indirect subsidiary AveXis to Novartis Gene Therapies. The Swiss drugmaker said the change signifies the growing importance of gene therapy to building a leading, focused medicines company with advanced therapy platforms. In future, AveXis and Novartis brands will operate under one corporate umbrella.
Gilead Sciences is to acquire Immunomedics for approximately $21 billion. The deal, unanimously approved by both companies' boards of directors, will be funded by $15 billion in cash and $6 billion in new debt, and is expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2020.
US-based CDMO Catalent is joining forces with compatriot drug discovery company Exelixis to develop multiple antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). The company’s Redwood Bioscience subsidiary will use its proprietary SMARTag site-specific bioconjugation technology to build ADCs using monoclonal antibodies from Exelixis’ preclinical pipeline.
Dow is selling its three industrial terminals on the US Gulf Coast to a new 50:50 joint venture of Royal Vopak and BlackRock’s Global Energy & Power Infrastructure Fund for $620 million. The terminals, with a total combined capacity of 825,000 cubic meters, are at Freeport, Texas and St. Charles and Plaquemine in Louisiana.
Despite the global coronavirus pandemic that threatened to wipe out gains made since the deep economic recession of a decade ago, Germany’s chemicals and pharmaceutical producers held up relatively well in the first half year, Christian Kullmann, president of the industry association Verband der Chemischen Industrie (VCI), told journalists last week.
According to its latest Chemical Quarterly Report, which CEFIC, the European Chemical Industry Council, published on Sept. 10, chemical output in the EU27 dropped by 5.2% from January to June 2020 compared to the previous year’s level (January to June 2019), following the Covid-19 outbreak in Europe.
Dupont has announced the sale of its trichlorosilane (TCS) business and its equity interest in the Hemlock Semiconductor (HSC) joint venture to Hemlock for $725 million. The business, based in Saginaw County, Michigan, USA, produces TCS, which is a key raw material for HSC’s high-purity polysilicon that it supplies to the semiconductor and solar industries.
US industrial gases producer Air Products has signed a long-term contract to build a new state-of-the-art plant to supply an unnamed manufacturer of memory chips on-site in Malaysia’s Prai Industrial Park at Penang.
AstraZeneca has resumed Phase 2/3 clinical trials with Oxford University’s Covid-19 vaccine candidate in the UK, days after halting the tests due to an “adverse neurological event” that CEO Pascal Soriot said occurred in the UK trial and involved an inflammatory spinal cord disorder.
US biopharma AbbVie has signed a global collaboration agreement with China’s I-Mab to develop and commercialize lemzoparlimab – also known as TJC4 – an anti-CD47 monoclonal antibody for treating multiple cancers. The companies can also potentially expand the collaboration to include other therapies.
Invista Performance Technologies (IPT) has won two separate contracts to supply its PTA technology for projects in China and Turkey.
Catalent Gene Therapy, a unit of US-based CDMO Catalent, is spending $130 million on five new Phase 3-through commercial-scale manufacturing suites at its gene therapy campus in Harmans, Maryland, near Baltimore Washington International (BWI) airport. The company said the investment is in reaction to a growing customer pipeline and market demand.
Dutch-domiciled, US-managed olefins chemicals and plastics major LyondellBasell and China's Liaoning Bora Enterprise Group (Bora) have started up their new polyolefins complex at Panjin in northeastern China’s Liaoning province. Bora is one of the largest private petrochemical enterprises in the region.
UK specialty chemicals and sustainable technologies company Johnson Matthey (JM) and US engineering and construction contractor KBR have entered into an alliance to license a “ground-breaking” ammonia-methanol co-production process.
