Johnson Matthey and BP have won a contract to license their co-developed Fischer Tropsch CANS technology to Strategic Biofuels for that company’s Louisiana Green Fuels (LGF) project in the US state’s Caldwell Parish.
A new venture capital vehicle launched by a group of biotech entrepreneurs is designed to act as a seed investor as well as a drug discovery co-pilot for biotech startups that need help with Series-A financing.
NextChem and its subsidiary MyRechemical – both part of Italy’s Maire Tecnimont group – and Dutch company Dimeta have agreed to jointly explore new opportunities to develop plants for producing renewable and recycled carbon dimethyl ether (DME) from waste.
IMCD South Africa has agreed to buy CPS Chemical Oil-Tech, a Durban-based distributor that mostly serves the lubricants and fuel markets. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2023.
Switzerland’s Archroma said it has secured all regulatory approvals required to complete the acquisition of the Textile Effects portfolio of US chemical producer Huntsman and expects to close the transaction this week, on Feb. 28.
German engineering plastics producer Covestro has started up a new €200 million chlorine plant at its Tarragona complex in Spain. The company said the new facility will strengthen its 220,000 t/y European network for the key rigid-polyurethane feedstock MDI while reducing energy consumption by up to 25%.
Canadian CDMO Biodextris plans to build a new industrial-scale vaccine and biologics facility in Laval, Quebec. The company said the cGMP biomanufacturing center and its analytical capabilities will be an asset in its development as a world-class CDMO.
GSK is pruning its cooperation with Vir Biotechnology, turning away from Covid-19 antibody and vaccine research projects while continuing to collaborate with the company on two pandemic assets and programs to treat other respiratory diseases.
Safety findings in Phase 2 clinical trials have forced Aristea Therapeutics to stop developing its lead candidate RIST4721 for treating serious immune-mediated inflammatory diseases. As a consequence, Aristea’s management has decided to dissolve the company.
Two years after European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla virtually wrapped up a major order for the Covid-19 vaccine Comirnaty that the US drugmaker markets with Germany’s BioNTech, the New York Times is suing the Commission in the European Court of Justice for its failure to make essential details of the negotiations public.
Genentech, the US biotech arm of Swiss pharma giant Roche, is building a new small-batch biologics manufacturing facility at its Oceanside campus in California, USA. Groundbreaking took place on Feb. 10.
With merger clearance granted by India this week, nothing now stands in the way of plans by German chemical producer Lanxess and private equity investor Advent International to create a 40:60 joint venture for high performance engineering plastics with annual sales of around €300 million.
Swiss CMDO Lonza said it will expand its Early Development Services (EDS) offering into North America with a new laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, set to open in May this year.
Agilent Technologies has selected Turner Construction to build its previously announced new API plant in Frederick, Colorado, USA. The project is scheduled for completion in 2026.
Solvay has announced it is in “advanced” talks to sell its 50% share of Russian PVC joint venture RusVinyl to partner Sibur. Russian government authorities have given their preliminary clearance for the transaction, which remains subject to several other regulatory approvals.
Ineos has announced it has secured €3.5 billion in financing for its designated Project One, which is being realized at Lillo in the Port of Antwerp, Belgium, and now expected to go on stream in 2026.
Following discussions that started last November, Brazilian polyolefins producer Braskem and Finnish technology and engineering company Coolbrook have now signed an agreement to collaborate on cracker electrification.
Macfarlan Smith, a UK-based unit of US API maker Veranova, formerly known as Johnson Matthey Health, has completed a $10 million expansion of its mid-scale active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing capabilities in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Masdar, a clean energy company based in Abu Dhabi, and Austria’s leading energy utility Verbund have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to develop pathways for producing and exporting green hydrogen to Central Europe, specifically Austria and southern Germany.
Lotte Biologics, part of South Korean conglomerate Lotte, has detailed expansions plans for the business as it embarks on a path to become a top 10 CDMO by 2030.
The year 2023 has started on a busy note for Linde’s plant engineering arm. For starters, Norwegian energy group Equinor has awarded the company a Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) contract for its H2H (Hydrogen to Humber) project in northeast England.
Bowing to growing pressure from activist investors with different missions, the supervisory board of tradition-steeped German pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals player Bayer has announced the appointment of a new CEO to succeed embattled incumbent Werner Baumann — a year before the end of the current chief executive’s regular term.
Lotte Chemical, part of South Korean conglomerate Lotte, has formed a strategic alliance with Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation (MC) to jointly develop stable large-scale green and blue “clean ammonia” supply chains in Asia, Europe and the US.
Solenis, a US producer of specialty chemicals for water-intensive industries, has closed its acquisition of Peru’s Grand Invest. The Wilmington, Delaware-headquartered company said the purchase aligns with its direct go-to-market strategy to provide customers in the region with improved chemical and water treatment products and services.
Across the US and Europe, health and environment NGOs are putting pressure on national authorities to curb contamination from poly-fluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS), the hard-to-decompose “forever chemicals” used to make semiconductors, batteries, aircrafts, cars, medical equipment or coat frying pans and skis.
NextChem, a subsidiary of Italian engineering contractor Maire Tecnimont, has agreed to acquire, scale up and commercialize Biorenova’s proprietary CatC continuous chemical recycling technology through a joint venture.
Univar has acquired ChemSol, a leading ingredients and specialty chemicals distributor operating in Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, and Honduras. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Lotte Ineos Chemical, a joint venture of South Korea’s Lotte Chemical and UK-managed Ineos, has announced plans to increase overall production capacity for vinyl acetate monomer (VAM) to 700,000 t/y from 450,000 t/y currently.
UK specialty chemicals company Croda International has agreed to buy Solus Biotech, a South Korean company specializing in ceramide and phospholipid technologies and with emerging capabilities in natural retinol. The purchase price is about £232 million on a debt-free, cash-free basis.
Amgen’s proposed acquisition of Horizon Therapeutics for $28.7 billion, including debt, would be the largest healthcare deal since AstraZeneca’s $39 billion purchase of Alexion in 2021, if it goes ahead. As such, it is under intense scrutiny.
Repsol has announced plans to install a new production line for recycled plastics at its site in Puertollano, Spain. The new line, with capacity of 25,000 t/y, will go into operation at the end of 2024, almost doubling existing output of 16,000 t/y.
TotalEnergies is selling half of its portfolio of renewable projects to French insurance specialist Crédit Agricole Assurances. The transaction, which implies an enterprise value of $300 million, includes 23 solar power plants and six wind farms, of which 25 are already operational and four are due to be commissioned in the first half of this year.
Dutch specialty chemicals producer Nouryon is expanding its Application Development Centers in Deventer, the Netherlands, and at Chattanooga in the US state of Tennessee to offer advanced technical service capabilities dedicated to cleaning in Europe and North America.
Inovyn, PVC-producing subsidiary of Ineos, has inked two long-term power supply deals with Norway’s Statkraft, which claims to be Europe’s largest renewables producer. From May, Inovyn will draw 100 MW of exclusively renewable energy from Statkraft for an annual renewable energy production of 876 GWh per year and an additional 30 MW (263 GWh) from 2026.
The International Chemical Secretariat (ChemSec), a Swedish NGO that advocates for reducing the production and use of hazardous chemicals, has added 370 new per- or poly-fluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) — also known as “forever chemicals” — to its Substitute It Now (SIN) List.
