Nouryon has bought an alkoxylation plant in Singapore. The company said the plant on Jurong Island will enhance its ability to serve growing regional demand in key end-markets, such as agriculture and food, home and personal care, natural resources, and paints and coatings.
Faced with a lawsuit from US rival Moderna, alleging that Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech infringed one of its patent for their top-selling Covid-19 vaccine Comirnaty, the New York US drugs giant said in a court filing that Comirnaty was based on independent research and wasn’t a Moderna copy.
Ineos has agreed a fourth joint venture with Sinopec that will see it take a 50% share in the Tianjin Nangang project, which is currently underway and due to go on stream at the end of 2023.
Olefins and polyolefins producer Borealis has joined forces with Austrian energy utility company Verbund to supply solar energy to its production site at Schwechat, Austria.
Two weeks after annnouncing that it would no longer seek to market its Covid-19 vaccine in the US, Anglo-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca has unveiled plans to sell its production site at West Chester, Ohio, to privately-held biomanufacturing company National Resilience.
US contract research organization Reaction Biology has acquired German contract laboratory Bioassay Labor für biologische Analytik and its wholly owned subsidiary Peptide Specialty Laboratories (PSL).
Consolidation in the distribution sector continues apace. Specialty chemicals and food ingredients distributor Azelis has entered into an agreement to take over Chemiplas, a leading distributor of specialty chemicals, plastic raw materials and ingredients in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.
Executives and industry experts share their views on drivers as well as barriers for the use of flow chemistry in pharmaceutical manufacturing and the prospect for this technology in their industry sector.
Given the challenges the pharmaceutical industry is facing – secure material supply, reduce operation cost and increase flexibility, enhance sustainability and safety, innovate and reduce time-to-market – the sector is poised for a breakthrough of flow chemistry.
Numerous crises such as climate change, energy shortages, raw material shortages, war in Ukraine and the consequences of the pandemic are putting value chains worldwide to the test.
The 2022 edition of the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook, compiled by the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), is published at a moment of tremendous turmoil.
The European Commission has provisionally renewed the license of the herbicide active ingredient glyphosate until the end of 2023. Earlier this year, the EU governing body had asked all member states to approve a one-year extension.
Pfizer has announced plans to invest more than €1.2 billion at its site in Grange Castle, Dublin, Ireland, to double capacity for biological drug substances.
US-headquartered CDMO giant Catalent has completed the expansion of its clinical supply facility in the Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone (FTZ) in Shanghai, China.
UK-steered petrochemicals giant Ineos has signed long-term charter agreements with Japan’s IINO Kaiun Kaisha line for delivery of two Very Large Ethane Carriers (VLECs) with a volume of 99,000 cbm, initially to supply liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Germany.
The UK’s Center for Process Innovation (CPI) opened its Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Center in Glasgow on Nov. 30, with the aim of accelerating new technologies in the pharma industry.
SABIC, Saudi Aramco and PKN Orlen have signed a joint development agreement to assess the technical and economic feasibility of a petrochemical project in the Polish city of Gdansk. The project would include a steam cracker and downstream plants.
WuXi STA has started up a new parenteral formulation line at its drug product site in Wuxi City, China. The company’s second line for parenteral drug product clinical and commercial manufacturing to go on stream this year has an annual capacity of 10 million units.
Ireland wants to harness its huge offshore wind potential to become a major exporter of renewable hydrogen to other European nations but will have to take significant steps to realize its vision, the country’s environment ministry says.
US agricultural chemicals and seeds group Corteva has agreed to buy Stoller Group, a compatriot producer of biostimulants and plant nutrition products, for $1.2 billion in cash. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2023.
UK specialty chemicals company Elementis has agreed to sell its chromium business to the Yildirim Group for $170 million. The deal values the business at 7.3 times the EBITDA posted in fiscal 2022 (30 June.)
The European Commission has fined five companies a total of €157 million for forming a styrene cartel that operated from May 2012 to June 2018. Affected are Sunpor, Synbra, Synthomer, Synthos and Trinseo. As the member that blew the whistle in 2017, Ineos escaped a fine.
AstraZeneca has agreed to acquire Neogene Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on the discovery, development and manufacture of next-generation T-cell receptor therapies (TCR-Ts) – a promising and novel cell therapy approach to target cancer.
Interview with Lisa Z. Mobech and Bjol R. Frenkenberger, MIR Insight
QatarEnergy, teamed with US energy major ConocoPhillips, has agreed to supply Germany with around 2 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) annually over 15 years, starting in 2026.
To help supply the expanding global demand for PA 6.6, which it markets as Nylon, US-based trademark owner Invista, now part of Koch Industries, is building a new plant at its Camden, South Carolina, production site, where groundbreaking ceremonies were recently held.
French technology and services group Axens has signed a joint commercial cooperation agreement with Japan’s Chiyoda on their respective hydrogen technologies
Shell has sealed a definitive agreement to buy Europe’s largest biogas producer, Denmark’s Nature Energy, for €1.9 billion. The move is being seen as another sign of a former oil major’s effort to diversify its portfolio and reduce the dependence on fossil fuels that put it on the energy map.
In a move that will advance the launch of its first cell therapy product EpiDex, Swiss biotech Healiva has acquired a qualified cell bank from B. Braun Medical, a Swiss subsidiary of the German medical and pharmaceutical device company, B. Braun.
Polish companies Energy Group and Hynfra have signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) to develop a project that would produce green hydrogen, green ammonia and methanol. The companies estimate the cost of the project to be more than €22 billion.
CH-Bioforce, based in Raisio, Finland, strives for a cleaner world.
The current crisis, exacerbated by the economic downturn and war in Ukraine, can be an opportunity to reduce dependence on fossil feedstocks and explore sustainable alternatives.
France’s TotalEnergies said it plans to build a new production line for high-performance recycled polypropylene used in automotive applications at its polymer production site in Carling, France.
SABIC has announced plans to set up a crude oil-to-chemicals (COTC) complex in Ras Al-Khair, Saudi Arabia. The complex is expected to convert 400,000 bbl/day of oil, the company said in a statement to the Tadawul stock exchange.
Brenntag and Univar Solutions have both confirmed reports from late last week that they are in talks about the German-multinational chemical distributor acquiring its US rival. Both companies stress that the negotiations are at a preliminary stage.
