EU competition authorities have approved AstraZeneca’s $39 billion takeover of US biopharma Alexion. Europe’s green light for the deal sealed in December 2020 follows the approval of the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in April 2021.
US semiconductor equipment maker MKS Instruments is buying German specialty chemicals and equipment company Atotech for an enterprise value of $6.5 billion in a combined cash-and-stock deal. The acquisition is expected to close by the fourth quarter of 2021. MKS will fund the cash portion of the transaction with funds to hand and debt financing.
In the aftermath of a far-reaching mix-up of Astra Zeneca’s Covid vaccine ingredients with those of Johnson & Johnson’s shot, US CDMO Emergent BioSolutions not only has lost half of its stock market value but is also facing shareholder lawsuits related to other offenses, including securities fraud.
Companies outside the drugs and private equity sectors are increasingly striking deals to buy pharmaceutical companies. In one of the latest, cigarette manufacturer Phillip Morris has bought oral drug delivery specialist Fertin Pharma. Seller is private equity investor EQT Private Equity.
German specialty chemicals producer Pulcra Chemicals has acquired Belgium’s Devan for an undisclosed sum. The deal is the first in Pulcra’s history. The Geretsried-headquartered company, which supplies process chemicals to the textile and leather industries, was previously the process chemicals business of Cognis. It was carved out in separate legal entities on Jul. 1, 2007, and renamed.
AGC Biologics, US biopharma CDMO, has signed an agreement to buy a cell and gene therapy manufacturing facility in Longmont, Colorado, from Novartis Gene Therapies. Financial terms were not disclosed.
With an eye toward the growing electric vehicle market, BASF has announced it will build a battery recycling prototype plant at the site of its cathode active materials (CAM) production facility in Schwarzheide, Germany.
Emma Walmsley, CEO of GlaxoSmithKline, under attack from activist investor Elliott Management, has received the backing of the company’s board, which said it “strongly believes” she is the “right leader” for the UK’s largest drugmaker after the planned spinoff of its consumer health business and “fully supports” the steps she’s taking to improve performance.”
The board of Indian state-owned oil, gas and petrochemicals group Indian Oil has approved the construction of a styrene plant, the country’s first.
Lonza has completed the carve-out of its Specialty Ingredients business as LSI and appointed a management team led by CEO Mark Doyle, a former DuPont and DowDuPont chief. The newly independent company with a workforce of 2,900 and a global presence in 32 countries is now owned by Herens HoldCo, an entity controlled by private equity firms Bain Capital and Cinven.
Kemira is expanding capacity of water treatment chemicals in Yanzhou, China, as it progresses its growth strategy in Asia-Pacific.
Dow and Shell have secured funding from the Dutch government and are also linking up with two research organizations to accelerate progress in the joint cracker electrification development program that they announced about a year ago. The technology has the potential to significantly reduce CO2 emissions from one of the chemical industry’s most central processes.
Definitive results from CureVac’s 40,000-subject international Phase 2b/3 trial with its mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccine candidate, CVnCoV, have confirmed an earlier finding that it is only about 48% effective in preventing infection of any severity across the “unprecedented” 15 strains of the virus encountered during the tests with participants in Latin America and Europe.
Solvay has appointed Pascal Chalvon Demersay to chief sustainability and government affairs officer, effective July 1, 2021, integrating the new responsibilities to his current role as chief sustainability officer.
Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and India’s Reliance Industries have entered into an agreement to build a world-scale chlor-alkali, ethylene dichloride (EDC) and PVC complex at the Ta’ziz industrial chemicals zone in Ruwais, Abu Dhabi.
French drugmaker Sanofi plans to invest around €400 million annually in a center of excellence for mRNA vaccines that it hopes will accelerate the development and delivery of the next-generation vaccine portfolio it has built up in collaboration with US biotech Translate Bio. The company said the project will be “fully financed” through resource reallocation.
Celanese has emerged as the buyer of the TPV elastomers business Exxon Mobil put on the sale block earlier this year. The US chemicals and engineering plastics group said on Jun. 30 it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire the portfolio that includes the iconic Santoprene brand along with intellectual property, production and commercial assets.
French CDMO Novasep has announced plans to upgrade its API manufacturing facility in Mourenx, increasing its flexibility and competitiveness. The company will invest €6.1 million over three years and create seven full-time jobs.
AkzoNobel has agreed to purchase Colombia-based paints and coatings company Grupo Orbis, expanding its footprint in South and Central America. Financial terms of the deal, which is expected to close by the end of this year, were not revealed.
Lonza is investing 20 million Swiss francs in an expansion of its API development and manufacturing facility at Nansha, China. The Basel-based CDMO said the expanded laboratories and manufacturing infrastructure should be operational sometime between the first and the third quarter of next year. At the start, some 70 jobs will be added to the currently 250-member staff.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) added information about myocarditis and pericarditis to its fact sheets for the mRNA-based Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines on Jun. 25.
French gases group Air Liquide has announced plans to invest about €70 million in building a plant in Wuhan, China, to supply a major memory chipmaker, whose identity was not disclosed. Air Liquide will build, own and operate the ultra-high purity industrial gases plant, which will produce 52,000 Nm3/hr of nitrogen, as well as oxygen, argon and other gases. The facility is planned to be operational in 2022.
As part of its drive to reduce the complexity of its Consumer Healthcare (CHC) portfolio, French drugmaker Sanofi has agreed to sell 16 products marketed exclusively in Europe to German generics manufacturer Stada.
On June 10th, 2021, ten leading German corporations announced the foundation of the Quantum Technology and Application Consortium (QUTAC). Boosted by the German Government, the goal of the newly founded consortium is to further develop the existing fundamentals of quantum computing into usable industrial applications.
TotalEnergies has launched the e-CO2Met project that aims to produce methanol from green hydrogen. The French group is working on the project in Leuna, Germany, with electrolyzer manufacturer Sunfire, the Fraunhofer Center for Chemical-Biotechnological Processes and the Fraunhofer Institute for Microstructure of Materials and Systems IMWS.
Swiss CDMO Lonza is collaborating with Swedish pharma SelectImmune to develop processes for NlpD, a novel immunotherapy protein that could provide an alternative to antibiotics, given the increasing rise in resistance to antibacterial agents.
Catalent has announced plans to acquire RheinCell Therapeutics, a German developer and manufacturer of GMP-grade human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), a type of cell that can be differentiated into various cell types to address a wide range of therapeutic indications.
Dutch multinational storage operator Vopak has won a contract from China’s Huizhou QuanMei Petrochemical Terminal to build and operate a terminal as part of ExxonMobil’s proposed chemical complex at Huizhou.
Centrient Pharmaceuticals has started its expanded production of statins at its manufacturing plant for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) in Toansa, India. With the start-up of its second unit at the site, the Dutch company said it has doubled capacity for Atorvastatin and Rosuvastatin, meeting the increased demand for its sustainably produced portfolio.
In a closely watched whistleblower suit, a federal court jury in the US state of Oregon has awarded $2.4 million to a former sales manager for AstraZeneca, who claimed the drugmaker fired her after she raised concerns of off-label marketing.
Global food giant Kerry Group has entered into an agreement to acquire Niacet Corp. from an affiliate of funds advised by private equity firm SK Capital Partners and other shareholders, for €853 million.
Brenntag is to buy US-based Storm Chaser Holding, also known as JM Swank, a leading distributor of food ingredients, in its third acquisition so far this year. The transaction is expected to close during the third quarter of 2021.
In what it called another “significant milestone” along the route to greener production globally, BASF has agreed to buy renewable electricity for its Zhanjiang integrated site in China from China Resources Power. The purchase transacted through the Guangdong Power Exchange Center was made possible by new government rules established in April, and BASF will be the first company to benefit.
US science and technology group Danaher has agreed to pay $9.6 billion to buy Aldevron, a compatriot contract developer and manufacturer of biologics for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors.
Paris-headquartered engineering firm Technip Energies has agreed to cooperate with Agilyx Corporation on recycling of post-consumer polystyrene. The pact calls for the Technip group company to market and license the related technology of the two partners as an integrated package.
