Swiss chemicals company Clariant has entered into a cooperation agreement for its Sunliquid cellulosic ethanol technology with Technip Energies. The technology converts agricultural residues, woody materials or municipal solid wastes into cellulosic sugars, which are then fermented into cellulosic ethanol.
Henkel has now decided to pull out of Russia, due to the country’s invasion of Ukraine. The German consumer chemicals producer said, however, it would keep paying its 2,500 employees there until the exit is complete.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is taking a closer look at permits issued for chemical plants by the state of Louisiana’s environment department (LDEQ) over several years in an effort to determine whether they violated anti-pollution standards and disadvantaged Black people residing downwind.
North American biochemical companies Lygos and Flexible Solutions International (FSI) have agreed to merge in an all-stock transaction. The move follows a strategic investment made by FSI in Lygos in February 2021.
Bayer CEO Werner Baumann will receive some needed support from two major shareholder groups at the upcoming annual general meeting (AGM) but he is not out of the woods yet.
Biomanufacturing for both traditional biologics and new modalities, such as cell and gene therapies, continues to be an active area of investment for CDMOs/CMOS. Some of the major investments by the larger CMDOs/CMOs are outlined in this article.
Oqema has acquired the Orosolv Group in France. The deal adds companies in Oyonnax, Ain and Brignais, near Lyon, with more than 20 employees, two warehouse locations, as well as logistics, blending and repacking facilities.
It sometimes seems that everyone running a business always thinks that times are tougher now than they used to be. For producers — and buyers — of commodity chemicals, this thinking will take the more specific form of concerns about increased price volatility.
The EU Green Deal sets a high bar for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and its impact will be felt across industries. But the chemical sector’s unique nature means that it will be more deeply affected than other industries – and more deeply involved in making net zero a reality, as well.
For its annual report "Value Creation in Chemicals 2021 – Ten Years of Steady Growth – and a Few Superstars," the strategy consultancy Boston Consulting Group examined the performance of leading international chemical companies from 2011 to 2020. The long-term perspective shows that the industry has mastered serious market downturns with astonishing confidence.
Following exclusive negotiations that started last September, German API specialist PharmaZell and French CDMO Novasep have merged as of Apr. 7. The combined group will have revenues of nearly €500 million and employ more than 2,000 people across 10 production and R&D sites – seven in Europe, two in India and one in the US.
Novartis subsidiary Sandoz has launched a generic version of Combigan, the ocular hypertensiondrug made by AbbVie’s Allergan arm. The copy of the off-patent eye drops will be marketed only in the US, where Allergan racked up sales of $373 million with the original product in 2021.
From its inception in 1881, SCI's principal objective has been to further the application of chemistry and related sciences into industry for the public benefit.
Since the middle of the 1980s, the supply chain of many chemicals has moved east. This was primarily driven by cheaper production costs in China or India, due to lower raw material prices, a cheaper asset base compared to plants in the West, and lower environmental and regulatory standards.
Pfizer has agreed to buy privately held, clinical-stage biopharma ReViral for up to $525 million, including upfront and development milestones. ReViral is focused on developing and commercializing novel antiviral therapies that target respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which can lead to severe and life-threatening lower respiratory infections in high-risk populations.
British drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is buying US cancer treatment developer Sierra Oncology for £1.5 billion in a deal observers see as designed to fend off pressure from activist shareholder Elliott Management, which has been pushing the company to expand its pipeline.
With all European energy discussions now focusing on dramatic cuts in supplies of Russian gas, Dow Chemical is taking an undisclosed minority stake in an import terminal for US liquefied natural gas (LNG) that is planned to be built on its own chemical complex at Stade on the German North Sea coast.
Tecnimont, part of Italian engineering and technology group Maire Tecnimont, has won two contracts in the US from the same company. The contracts, worth $415 million in total, were granted by an undisclosed “global chemicals producer.”
UK chemicals company Synthomer completed its $1 billion acquisition of Eastman Chemical’s adhesive resins business on Apr. 1. The business will form a new division called Adhesive Technologies. Synthomer said the business has a leading position in the global adhesives market, which is exposed to attractive end-markets with resilient GDP+ growth fundamentals.
Catalent has acquired a 174,000 m2 biologics development and manufacturing facility currently being built by Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre UK (VMIC) on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus south of Oxford, England.
US engineering and construction group Black & Veatch has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Vietnamese renewable energy developer The Green Solutions (TGS) to advance green hydrogen and green ammonia production in Vietnam.
Swedish specialty chemical producer Perstorp plans to lift capacity for carboxylic acid by around 70,000 t/y up to 2024, in what it said is a move to strengthen its position as a sustainable solutions provider.
Germany’s economics ministry has budgeted up to €2.9 billion ($3.14 billion) to ensure sufficient supply of mostly mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccines to be able to deal with the ongoing pandemic and any future outbreaks up to 2029.
Venator Materials has won a $75 million lawsuit against Tronox in a case over a break fee contained in an exclusivity agreement entered into in July 2018 relating to the latter’s merger with Cristal.
CDMO Sterling Pharma Solutions has announced plans to invest £1 million in an expansion of its site at Deeside, UK, which is dedicated to bioconjugation and antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). The move follows its acquisition of the site’s owner ADC Biotechnology in April last year.
Bayer has settled a collection of claims from US plaintiffs that Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide caused their cancer, the US newspaper St. Louis Dispatch reports. This, it said, avoids a publicity-sensitive trial that was due to start this week in the Missouri city that was Monsanto’s global headquarters before it was acquired by the German group for $63 billion in 2018.
Australian multinational engineering contractor Worley has won two contracts this month for work in Belgium and Oman. The value of the contracts was not disclosed.
Italian petrochemicals and plastics producer Versalis and compatriot renewables specialist Novamont are revising the structure of their Matrica biopolymers joint venture in the hope of playing a more active role in the EU’s burgeoning circular plastics economy and help shape the Green Deal.
Ineos Nitriles has announced plans to build a 15,000 t/y acetonitrile plant at Cologne, Germany, one of its key operating sites. Without quantifying the investment, it said it would be “substantial.”
The US Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration have removed the IV antibody treatment sotrovimab made by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Vir Biotechnology from the list of approved drug therapies for Covid-19.
Mesaieed Petrochemical’s board of directors has approved the award of an engineering, procurement and construction contract for a PVC plant in Qatar. The project is planned by Qatar Vinyl, a joint venture between Mesaieed, Qatar Petrochemical and Qatar Energy.
AGC Pharma Chemicals Europe, part of Japanese conglomerate AGC, is expanding capacity for synthetic pharmaceuticals at its site in Malgrat de Mar, Spain. The CDMO will add a new building that will raise existing capacity by 30% when it starts operating in the first half of 2024.
UK infrastructure solutions provider PX Group, which operates several critical energy sites, has acquired Fairport Engineering (Fairport), an engineering and materials handling specialist based in northwest England.
In March 2022, Mercator by Citco published a report that provides direct insights into the practice and dynamics of Global Entity Portfolio Management (GEPM) within the pharmaceuticals sector – based on real-life data – when these businesses have been at the epicenter of one of the most significant global disrupters in modern times.
US paintmaker PPG has agreed to sell certain business activities in Senegal, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Gabon and Algeria, to French industrial group Océinde. Financial terms were not disclosed.
