A vaccine to protect children under the age of five against Covid-19 won’t be on the market soon, it seems. Pfizer/BioNtech, the only vaccine maker with near-term plans to launch a children’s vaccine, will not accelerate its application with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for an emergency use authorization (EUA) as some had hoped. Both companies and the health agency now agree that more time is needed.
German methaycrylates specialist Röhm recently broke ground on a new state-of-the-art innovation center at Worms, Germany. The new facility, which will employ around 100 scientists, is designed to further expand its technology leadership, the company said.
Azelis has signed a deal to acquire Tunckaya, a Turkish food ingredients and additives distributor, further strengthening its position in the country’s fast-growing market for food, as well as the broader life sciences sector. The Istanbul-based company employs 25 people and serves more than 500 customers.
French multinational industrial gases group Air Liquide has announced it will build its largest-ever biomethane plant in the US. The new plant to be located in Rockford, Illinois, will take the company’s total annual global capacity to 1.8 terawatt hours (TWh) when it starts up by the end of 2023.
The pharma industry’s poaching season is on, though some say it’s never off, just taking a break. In the latest drugmaker-to-drugmaker side-swap, among the top news this week was that Bayer has hired away GlaxoSmithKline’s head of oncology therapy, Christine Roth, just as the UK pharma was seen to be reestablishing its position in cancer therapeutics.
Martin Shkreli, who as founder and CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, gained worldwide notoriety in 2015 for jacking up the price of Daraprim (pyrimethamine), a 62-year-old drug used to treat toxoplasmosis, has had another day in court. Like the others before, it didn’t go as he had hoped. Sentenced to a seven-year prison sentence on fraud charges earlier, the former executive sought to nullify a lifetime ban from working in the pharma industry, but lost.
Lilly has announced plans to spend more than $1.5 billion on new manufacturing facilities in the US and Ireland, as it beefs up its global network to meet rising demand for both its existing products and those under development.
German specialty chemicals producer Lanxess and the Matrìca joint venture of Italian players, Eni subsidiary Versalis and Novamont, have teamed up to produce sustainable biocide preservatives from renewable raw materials.
Lonza has agreed a manufacturing partnership with Australian biotech HaemaLogiX for the latter’s lead multiple myeloma drug candidate KappaMab.
Norwegian fertilizer producer Yara has signed a contract with Linde Engineering for the construction of a green hydrogen demonstration plant. The plant will be installed at the Heroya Industripark in Porsgrunn, Norway, and use Linde’s proton exchange membrane (PEM) technology.
As wealthy countries with ample supplies of Covid-19 vaccine struggle to convince more people to get the shot, and poorer countries struggle to nail down supplies, two US vaccine makers are making negative headlines. While EU and UK approval of the Novavax vaccine was just celebrated with fanfare, that company as well as Johnson & Johnson is now said to face delivery delays.
US paints and coatings group PPG has entered into an agreement to buy the powder coatings business of Italian company Arsonsisi, boosting its offering in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Arsonsisi’s powder coating sales reached about $15 million last year.
Clariant has signed definitive agreements to divest its 50% stake in the joint venture that owns Scientific Design Company to its long-term joint venture partner, SABIC. The Saudi group will execute a call option raised in 2015 to acquire the stake in the business bought by Germany’s Süd-Chemie in 2003 prior to its acquisition by Clariant.
German pharmaceuticals, chemicals and life sciences group Merck has restructured its life science business to promote growth and to better cater to the needs of an evolving global customer base. From Apr. 1, there will be four new units supporting the segment’s operating model.
Investment in UK biotech and life science companies scored a lifetime high in 2021, according to new data from the BioIndustry Association (BIA) and Clarivate.
Reacting to the comet-like rise in demand for lithium oxide batteries used as separators and cathode binders in electric and hybrid vehicles, Solvay is expanding production of its Solef-branded polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) at its site in Tavaux, France.
ExxonMobil is restructuring its organization into three business lines and relocating its corporate headquarters from Irving, Texas to Houston by mid-2023 in a move the energy and chemicals giant said would better support customers, enhance performance and grow value.
EuroChem, a Russian-owned fertilizer producer headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, has entered into exclusive negotiations to buy Borealis’s nitrogen business, making a binding offer of €455 million. The deal could complete in the second half of 2022.
Samsung Biologics has agreed to buy out partner Biogen’s share of their Samsung Bioepis joint venture for up to $2.3 billion. The South Korean group said the deal will accelerate growth in biosimilars and novel therapeutics R&D.
Hexion Holdings has completed the sale of its epoxy-based coatings and composites portfolio to Westlake Chemical for $1.2 billion. The deal comprises the epoxy specialty resins and base epoxy resins and intermediates product lines. Prior to the sale, Hexion had announced it would split into two independent companies.
February kicked off with a major publicity coup for US vaccine maker Novavax, based in the state of Maryland. Its Covid-19 vaccine was granted conditional marketing authorization in the UK, Germany’s vaccine advisory panel recommended its use and the company officially filed with the FDA for emergency use authorization.
Russian petrochemicals giant Sibur has chosen French engineering company Technip Energies as the licensor of its 1-hexene technology, known as Hexsib. The technology was developed by NIOST, one of Sibur’s main R&D centers.
US adhesives maker H.B. Fuller has purchased Apollo, the UK’s largest independent manufacturer of liquid adhesives, coatings and primers for the commercial roofing, industrial and construction markets.
With Germany’s foreign trade clearance still missing on the deal’s agreed Jan. 31 closing date, Munich-based Wacker Chemie declared its plans to sell its remaining 30.8% stake in silicon wafers manufacturer Siltronic to Taiwan’s GlobalWafers officially dead. For now, at least.
ExxonMobil and SABIC have brought on stream what they tout as the world’s largest ethane cracker. The facility at Portland, Texas, which is operated by the companies’ Gulf Coast Growth Ventures (GCGV), has capacity to produce 1.8 million t/y of ethylene.
Dr. Reddy's has appointed Akhil Ravi as CEO for its wholly-owned subsidiary Aurigene Pharmaceutical Services effective Feb. 1, 2022.
Ineos Styrolution has sold its StyLight thermoplastic composite materials business to German family-owned firm Ensinger for an undisclosed sum.
US private equity firms Blackstone and Carlyle may make a joint offer for the Novartis generics unit Sandoz, Bloomberg reports. With six other possible bidders seen as circling Basel-based Sandoz, the news agency’s sources said this sale could shape up to be one of the biggest-ever buyout deals, valued at around $25 billion.
SABIC Agri-Nutrients has agreed to acquire a 49% stake in ETG Inputs Holdco for an enterprise value of $320 million. ETG Inputs Holdco blends and distributes fertilizers, seeds and crop protection products across Africa from its more than 350 distribution centers.
BASF has expanded its feed enzymes capacity at Ludwigshafen, Germany, to meet growing global demand for its Natuphos E, Nutugrain TS and Natupulse TS products. The German group said feed enzymes have become indispensable for improving efficiency and sustainability in animal protein production.
Lanxess and private equity investor Advent International are reportedly discussing a transaction that could see the German company’s engineering plastics portfolios merge with the polymer-related activities being flogged off by DSM in the Netherlands. The resulting new entity would likely be controlled by Advent.
German drug discovery and development company Evotec has entered into two separate collaborations with major pharma firms during January.
Perstorp has appointed Ib Jensen as new CFO, effective Feb. 1, 2022. He takes over the CFO role from Ulf Berghult, who will leave Perstorp in April.
Sterling Pharma Solutions, a globally active CDMO based in Birmingham, England, has kicked off a $2.1 million expansion project to increase chemical and analytical capabilities at its facility at Cary, North Carolina, in the heart of the US state’s Research Triangle. The work is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year, allowing the recruitment of up to 20 additional scientists, the company said.
Citing strong demand for lithium-ion batteries, as well as from other important markets, Arkema said it is now planning to increase its fluoropolymer capacity at Changshu, China by 50%, rather than 35% as announced earlier. The expected start-up date at the end of 2022 remains unchanged.
