German chemical company Wacker has signed a contract with Danish biotech Biosyntia to develop a large-scale production process for biotin based on the fermentation of plant-based raw materials. This would provide a sustainable alternative to the synthetic version that is currently on the market and made from petrochemicals.
SABIC has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with parent group Saudi Aramco and Poland’s PKN Orlen to explore potential project opportunities in central and eastern Europe.
German ethanol producer CropEnergies has entered into an agreement with Johnson Matthey covering technology license, engineering and technical services for a 50,000 t/y renewable ethyl acetate plant. CropEnergies said the project, which would cost between €80 million and €100 million, would also lay the first foundation stone of Biobased Chemicals as a new business line.
Globally active EPC and turnkey project management company Nuberg EPC recently won a contract from Uzbekistan Hydrogen Peroxide JV to build and provide technology and engineering for an 85 t/d, 50% chemical-grade hydrogen peroxide plant in Uzbekistan’s Navoi region.
Up to now, the name BioNTech has popped up mostly in one breath with Pfizer, the company’s US partner in developing the mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccine marketed as Comirnaty. The German biotech, however, is increasingly broadening its horizons. On two consecutive days, Jan. 10 and Jan. 11, the company announced one major new collaboration project and gave an update on a second, both involving British companies.
Italy’s Sun Chemical, a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan’s DIC Corp., has bought compatriot adhesives and polymers manufacturer Sapici and its holding company Finape. Financial terms were not disclosed. The companies formed a strategic alliance in 2017 to market Sapici’s lamination adhesives under Sun Chemical’s brand name.
US chemicals and materials group Gelest has named Jonathan Goff as President effective immediately. He succeeds Barry Arkles, founder of Gelest, who has officially stepped down from his role as CEO on Dec. 31, 2021.
German chemical distributor Oqema has bought Spain’s Tecnufar Iberia, strengthening its presence in the region’s food ingredients and additives market. Tecnufar, which has about 20 employees, is headquartered in Madrid, where it also operates a warehouse along with two others in Barcelona and Valencia.
Bayer will potentially pump well over $1 billion into another major gene therapy collaboration, this time with Brisbane, California-based Mammoth BioSciences. In the pact announced during the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, held virtually for the second consecutive year, the German pharma and agriculture group said it aims to tap the US company’s knowhow in CRISPR systems to develop in vivo gene-editing therapies.
AstraZeneca and Ionis Pharmaceuticals have finalized their agreement to develop and commercialize investigational therapy eplontersen, formerly known as Ionis-TTR-L. The companies previously announced their intention to collaborate on Dec. 7, 2021.
As part of a collaboration agreed last year, petrochemicals giant Ineos will test Plastic Energy’s chemical – or advanced – recycling technology at the refinery in Grangemouth, Scotland owned by Petroineos, its joint venture with PetroChina.
Pfizer and BioNTech expect to have a modified version of their mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccine ready to tackle the Omicron variant by March, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said on Jan. 10. The partners already have begun manufacturing trial doses at their own risk, he said, but did not disclose where they will be sold, only that the doses will be available for countries that need them quickly.
South Korean engineering and construction group DL E&C has won a contract worth about €1.17 billion for work on plants that are part of the proposed Russian Baltic Chemical Complex to be built at the seaport of Ust-Luga, near the Gulf of Finland.
Germany’s Merck has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Exelead, a US biopharmaceutical CDMO, for around $780 million in cash. The Indianapolis, Indiana-based company specializes in complex injectable formulations, including Lipid Nanoparticle (LNP)-based drug delivery technology, which is key to mRNA therapeutics and vaccines for indications such as Covid-19.
The US Supreme Court is holding a special session today, Jan. 7, to deliberate on whether the administration of president Joe Biden can enforce a vaccine-or-test mandate for large private companies and a vaccine mandate for many healthcare workers. The review, which reflects inconclusive lower court decisions, is a departure from the normal proceeding of reviewing challenges to a binding verdict.
US biotech Amyris has formed a 50:50 joint venture with compatriot clinical-stage immunotherapy firm ImmunityBio to accelerate the commercialization of a next-generation Covid-19 vaccine. The companies signed a binding agreement for the venture last November.
German chemicals giant BASF plans to launch a corporate share buyback program worth up to €3 billion, beginning this month and stretching over nearly two years, until Dec. 31, 2023 at the latest.
Röhm has announced plans to spend a double-digit million euro sum to expand capacity in China for its Plexiglas polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) molding compounds. The company said the dynamic economic development of Asia’s automotive and lighting industries were key drivers for the expansion at its site in Shanghai, which will go on stream in the second quarter of 2023.
Huntsman has announced it will undertake a strategic review of its Textile Effects division, which is headquartered in Singapore and supplies dyes and chemicals to the textile and related industries. The review, which will include a potential sale, is due to start early this quarter. The US chemical producer did not say how long it would take, other than it “plans to move expeditiously.”
Germany‘s Heubach Group and US private equity investor SK Capital Partners have completed their acquisition of Clariant’s global colorants business and integrated it into a new Heubach Group. The share of the Clariant pigments business in Infraserv Höchst, which operates the chemical park at Frankfurt, Germany, was not part of the deal that valued the pigments portfolio at 800-855 Swiss francs.
In its second deal since becoming an independent company, Arxada – formerly Lonza Specialty Ingredients – has acquired Enviro Tech Chemical Services, a US manufacturer of proprietary and high efficacy antimicrobial and biocidal products. Financial details of the transaction, which closed on Dec. 22, 2021, were not disclosed.
In a departure from the accustomed geographical pattern of litigation against Bayer, investors based in Germany are suing the company for €2.2 billion ($2.5 billion). The shareholders are unhappy about the decline in the company’s share price on the back of hefty damage awards to US plaintiffs claiming that Monsanto’s non-selective herbicide Roundup caused their non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Ineos Olefins Belgium has received an environment permit for its planned €3 billion shale gas-fed ethane cracker in the Port of Antwerp, which is now due on steam in 2026. The permit for the facility announced in 2019 and dubbed Project One, is the first step toward approval.
Invista Textiles (UK), a division of US nylon giant Invista, has signed an agreement with China Resources Yantai Nylon to license technology for a new plant in China. The companies did not disclose a timeframe for the project.
Between the Christmas and the New Year’s bells and on both sides, the international pharmaceutical and healthcare sector continued battling the coronavirus pandemic. In one of the most watched developments – most of which took place in the US – Novavax finally fulfilled its pledge to file final data to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Emergency Use Authorization of its protein-based Covid-19 vaccine during the year’s fourth quarter.
US food giant Cargill has agreed to buy most of Croda’s Performance Technologies and Industrial Chemicals (PTIC) business for €915 million on a cash-free, debt-free basis. The acquisition of the UK group will boost Cargill’s bio-industrial footprint, better serving manufacturers seeking greener ingredients.
Dutch-based multinational specialty chemicals and ingredients distributor IMCD agreed two acquisitions in late December, namely Polychem in Austria and RPL Trading in Australia and New Zealand. Financial terms were not disclosed.
BASF is selling its US-based attapulgite business to Clariant for $60 million. The deal expected to close in summer 2022 following regulatory approval also includes the transfer of a production facility at Quincy in the state of Florida.
The Life Science business segment of Germany’s Merck has won a €121 million US government contract to build a new plant for its “Hi-Flow" Plus lateral flow membranes used in rapid diagnostic test kits, including those for Covid-19.
Private equity group SK Capital Partners has completed the acquisition of a majority stake in French firm Seqens, at the same time merging portfolio company Wavelength Pharmaceuticals into Seqens to create a leading pharma CDMO with annual revenues of €1.1 billion. The size of SK Capital’s stake was not disclosed.
Crop protection producers Albaugh in the US and Rotam – headquartered in Hong Kong and listed on the Taiwan stock exchange – have agreed to merge, creating a global leader with sales exceeding $2 billion. Under the terms, Albaugh will pay roughly $197.5 million net of cash and debt for Rotam. The takeover will be executed between an entity in the Albaugh group and Rotam’s holding company.
US Army scientists working at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research attached to the US military medical center of the same name have hinted at promising results from early stage clinical trials with a newly developed vaccine they believe could be capable of targeting all coronaviruses, including mutations of the virus currently causing Covid-19.
Following a strategic review of its Health division in April, Johnson Matthey (JM) has agreed to sell a majority stake in the business to US investment company Altaris Capital Partners for an enterprise value of £325 million. The transaction is expected to close in mid-2022, subject to regulatory approval.
Infrastructure company Currenta, which operates chemical parks formerly belonging to the Bayer group in Leverkusen, Dormagen and Uerdingen, Germany, has come under increasing pressure as industry-critical groups accuse it of not paying enough attention to safety and not being straightforward enough about a discharge of chemicals-laced firefighting water into the Rhine River.
Following a recommendation by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the European Commission has granted conditional marketing authorization to the protein-based Covid-19 vaccine made by US biotech Novavax. It is the fifth shot to be made available in all 27 member states and the first protein-based.
