Hamburg-based German distributor Biesterfeld has closed its acquisition of a majority stake in Singapore-based GME Chemicals. The distributor did not quantify the size of the stake but said it plans to purchase the remaining shares over a five-year period. The parties have agreed not to disclose details of the transaction, which will leave GME’s management team and employees in place.
Ineos subsidiary Inovyn is planning to build a large-scale 100-megawatt electrolyzer at its site in Cologne, Germany, to produce green hydrogen. In addition, the firm will upgrade existing hydrogen supply in Runcorn, UK. Both moves form part of Ineos’s plans announced on Oct. 18 to spend more than €2 billion on green hydrogen projects.
DuluxGroup, the Australian subsidiary of Japan’s Nippon Paint Holdings, is to acquire European decorative paint maker Cromology, creating a combined entity that will be the leading paints & coatings company in Asia-Pacific and the fourth largest worldwide.
Colorcon, a US supplier of specialty ingredients, film coating systems and functional excipients for the pharmaceutical and nutritional industries, has bought a majority share in India’s Ideal Cures. Financial terms and the size of the stake were not revealed.
Avid Bioservices, a biologics-oriented CDMO based in the US state of California, is building a new plant in Costa Mesa, California, as part of a plan to expand its cell and gene therapy portfolio. The purpose-built facility, to be located five miles from its current base in Tustin, California, will be dedicated to viral vector development and CGMP manufacturing.
Özlem Türeci and Uğur Şahin, founders and managing board members of Mainz-based BioNTech, were inducted into the Hall of Fame of German Research (Hall of Fame der deutschen Forschung) on Oct. 21. The awards ceremony in Wiesbaden, Germany, was organized by German pharmaceuticals, chemicals and life sciences group Merck together with Manager Magazin.
Air Liquide has raised its stake in H2V Normandy from 40% to 100%, renaming it Air Liquide Normand’Hy. The French industrial gases group, which bought its original stake only in January, said the strategic investment will support the development of a low-carbon hydrogen ecosystem in the Normandy industrial basin. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
As expected, Johnson & Johnson is taking its spun-off baby powder business into bankruptcy as a means of sidestepping a steadily moving avalanche of lawsuits claiming that its talc-based powder causes cancer, alternatively that it contains asbestos.
ECI Group (Engineers and Constructors International) has signed an Engineering Expertise Agreement with Shandong Yulong Petrochemical, a subsidiary of China’s Nanshan Group, to help realize a dual-stream plant with capacity to produce 200,000 t/y of ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) and other associated high-pressure copolymers.
An international consortium comprising the alternative energy business of Oman’s OQ, Japanese conglomerate Marubeni, industrial gases group Linde and engineering firm Dutco has signed a joint agreement to develop a green hydrogen and green ammonia project in the Salalah Free Zone.
German plastics additives manufacturer Baerlocher is adding capacity for its calcium-based PVC stabilizers at Bury, UK. The company said it will expand output by more than 50% in 2022 by installing new mixing and granulation units.
In a sign that the administration of US president Joe Biden will be tougher on environmental offenses than that of former president Donald Trump, three companies belonging to petrochemicals producer LyondellBasell have received fines for improper operation, maintenance and monitoring of flares that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said used too much steam.
Following trials earlier this year of its proprietary technology for advanced recycling – also referred to as chemical recycling – ExxonMobil has now announced its intention to build a large-scale plant in Baytown, Texas, USA.
US chemical producer Milliken has completed the acquisition of compatriot Encapsys from the Cypress Performance Group (CPG), a holding company formed by Sherman Capital Holdings in the merger of Encapsys with IPS Corporation.
Haldor Topsoe, one of the largest suppliers of methanol (MeOH) catalysts and technology, has accepted HTE for testing its methanol (MeOH) catalysts in a p high throughput system under industrially relevant operating conditions.
Diverse developments taking place simultaneously in Covid-19 vaccines and treatments, especially in the US, are making it difficult for the average market watcher – and anti-vaccine enthusiasts – to keep up. While the past ten days have seen some concrete progress on boosters, following weeks of discussion, uncertainty lingers on some topics.
Germany’s Merck has opened its second production facility for viral vectors at Carlsbad, California, a move the company said significantly expands its global CDMO footprint. The new €100 million plant will more than double the company’s existing capacity to support large-scale commercial and industrial manufacturing for viral gene therapy.
Perstorp has appointed Patrice Pinsard as EVP Strategic Markets & Innovation, effective Oct. 18, 2021.
US specialty chemicals company Ingevity has announced plans to hike capacity for caprolactone monomer at its facility in Warrington, UK. The increase will be achieved through a series of optimization projects over the next 12 months that will expand Ingevity’s global monomer capacity by more than 20%.
Industrial gases producer Air Products has announced its largest-ever investment in the US, a $4.5 billion clean energy complex in the state of Louisiana’s Ascension Parish. The company will build, own and operate the mammoth facility expected to go on stream in 2026, producing more than 750 million standard cubic feet (22.5 million cubic meters) per day of “blue” hydrogen and blue ammonia.
US-based Charles River Laboratories International on Oct. 12 completed the divestment of its gene therapy CDMO site in Sweden and its research models and services operations in Japan. The site in Matfors, Sweden, was sold to an unnamed private investor group for about $52 million cash, with potential contingent payments of up to an additional $25 million, subject to certain adjustments.
Leading global chemical companies and the World Economic Forum (WEF) have announced that they are entering an agreement to formalize the Low-Carbon Emitting Technologies (LCET) initiative into a stand-alone entity by the end of 2023, to share early-stage risks and co-invest in developing and upscaling low-carbon emitting technologies.
Bayer’s pharmaceuticals division is spending more than €400 million to expand its production facilities for contraceptives in low and middle-income countries, in partnership with international organizations such as the United Nations Population Fund and the United States Agency for International Development.
Haldor Topsoe is partnering Dow to accelerate development of chemical recycling technology that converts hard-to-recycle waste plastics into pyrolysis oil feedstock. The Danish group will support the design and engineering of a 10,000 t/y market-development, or pilot, unit to be built at Dow’s site in Terneuzen, the Netherlands.
As part of a new strategic partnership, energy giant BP will provide German specialty chemicals producer Lanxess with “green” cyclohexane to feed its high-tech plastics production at Antwerp, Belgium.
Spanish energy and petrochemicals group Repsol is the latest of its industry peers to announce an acceleration of its transition to net zero emissions by 2050.
Czech company Orlen Unipetrol, part of Poland’s refining and petrochemicals group PKN Orlen, has announced plans to expand its steam cracker at Litvinov by adding an eleventh furnace. The project costing about 700 million Czech koruna (about €27 million) will expand ethylene output at the site to 585,000 t/y from 545,000 t/y.
Virtual specialty materials manufacturer Aceto has acquired A&C Bio Buffer, a GMP manufacturer of custom buffer and chemical blend products used to produce biopharmaceuticals. Financial terms were not disclosed.
AstraZeneca’s rare diseases unit Alexion has taken full control of Caelum Biosciences, gaining access to another rare disease drug, CAEL-101, which is a potential treatment for light chain amyloidosis (AL) that has been granted Fast Track status by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
French chemical producer Arkema has announced it will build a new plant for bio-based polyamide 11 powder at Changsu, China, with start-up planned for 2023. The investment runs parallel to the company’s €350 million mega project taking shape on Singapore’s Jurong Island, the latter encompassing both a PA resins unit and a plant to produce its feedstock, 11-aminoundecanoic acid.
CureVac is withdrawing its first-generation Covid-19 vaccine candidate, CVnCoV, from the current approval process with the European Medicines Agency. In a statement, the German biotech said the EMA had made it clear that there was no chance of the shot being approved before the second quarter of 2022. By this time, it expects candidates from the second-generation vaccine program it is pursuing with UK drugmaker GlaxoSmitKline (GSK) to have progressed to late-stage clinical development.
ExxonMobil has signed an Expression of Interest for the carbon capture and storage (CCS) of CO2 emissions from its Fife ethylene plant in Scotland. The move sees the US energy and petrochemicals giant increase its participation in the proposed Acorn CCS project, which could potentially store more than 20 million t/y of CO2 by the mid-2030s.
BASF and Sanyo Chemical Industries have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to jointly develop and produce sustainable polyurethane dispersions (PUDs). The companies said they aim to jointly develop and manufacture innovative products with strong sustainability contribution. Any newly developed technologies and products will have worldwide market access through their global production footprint.
US pharma giant Merck & Co has applied to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of its oral antiviral drug molnupiravir, developed together with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics. The New Jersey-based pharma and the Florida-headquartered biotech are positioning the pill as a preventative therapy, rather than as a therapeutic, the latter a path other industry heavyweights are taking.
Danish biotech Novozymes has linked up with US-based Anuvia Plant Nutrients to develop a range of combined biotechnologies to reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers in commercial agriculture. As a first step, the companies will combine Novozymes’ phosphate solubilizing microbial solutions with Anuvia’s bio-based fertilizer products to enhance macronutrient efficiency with a focus on phosphate.
