In a decision not everyone anticipated, the EU’s drugs regulator, European Medicines Agency, EMA, announced on Oct. 4 it was authorizing a booster shot of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines for healthy adults, to be given at least six months after the second dose.
Polish plastics and rubber producer Synthos is building a new butadiene extrusion unit, coupled with associated logistics infrastructure, at Plock, Poland. The new facility due on stream in 2024 will have an ultimate capacity of 120,000 t/y and will feed the company’s production in central and eastern Europe.
US scientific services supplier Thermo Fisher Scientific is investing $82.5 million to expand operations and create 169 jobs at its biologic drug substance manufacturing plant in St. Louis County, Missouri. The expanded facility will manufacture biologic drug substance products for treating a variety of chronic health conditions, including cancers and other life-threatening diseases, as well as Covid-19.
Dutch specialty chemicals and ingredients distributor IMCD has agreed to buy Aquatech Speciality (Shanghai) International Trading and Aquatech Speciality (Guangzhou) Trading in China. No financial details were disclosed for the transaction, which is expected to close during November.
US drugs giant Merck & Co. has signed a definitive agreement to acquire publicly traded US biotech Acceleron Pharma for $180 per share, yielding a total equity value of roughly $11.5 billion. Not only because of the size of the transaction, the takeover plans are being closely watched. An activist investor or anti-trust authority could potentially upset the deal, reports suggest.
Nouryon has started production at a new plant in Ningbo, China, for two key intermediates used in the manufacture of polymers and composites. The facility has a capacity of 35,000 t/y for tert-butyl hydroperoxide (TBHP) and tert-butyl alcohol (TBA), and output will serve rising demand in Asia for polymers used in the packaging, paints and coatings, and construction markets.
US industrial gases company Air Products, together with its Saudi-based subsidiary Air Products Qudra, Saudi Aramco and ACWA Power have signed definitive agreements for the asset acquisition and project financing of the $12 billion air separation unit gasification/power joint venture they will operate in Jazan Economic City, Saudi Arabia.
Hexion Holdings is separating its assets into two independent companies. The one continuing to use the Hexion name will be composed of the holding’s adhesives and versatic acids and derivatives product lines, while the other will absorb the assets grouped under Hexion Coatings and Composites (US), known as HCC. This company, which has operated as the holding’s epoxy-based coatings and composites products, will be renamed at a later date.
Saudi Industrial Investment Group (SIIG) and the National Petrochemical Company (Petrochem) have signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to assess the economic feasibility of a merger between the two firms.
Swiss drugmaker Novartis has acquired Arctos Medical, a compatriot start-up developing optogenetic therapies. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Specialty polymers and bio-based products manufacturer Kraton has agreed to be acquired by Korean petrochemicals and engineering group DL Chemical, part of DL Holdings, formerly known as Daelim Industrial. The all-cash transaction foresees DL Chemical paying $2.5 billion to take full control of the company based at Houston, Texas, in the US.
Sibur and TAIF have finalized the terms of their petrochemical merger. The move follows an announcement on Apr. 23 that the firms had initiated steps to create a combined company that will be Russia’s largest petrochemical producer and one of the top five global polyolefin and rubber producers.
Arkema has announced it is selling its epoxides business for $38.8 million to US agriculture giant Cargill. The agreed price for the activities with sales of around $40 million and some 45 employees is equivalent to around 10 times EBITDA.
A year ago unthinkable, the market for mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccines appears to be headed for saturation, even though, or perhaps because, there now seem to be more products on the market than first-world consumers want or need.
Bioplastics producer Danimer Scientific is collaborating with Chevron Phillips Chemical (CPChem) to explore a loop slurry reactor design for making a type of polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) called Rinnovo. The Rinnovo PHA is synthesized from lactones produced using Danimer’s proprietary Novo22 catalyst technology, which can be used to make biodegradable alternatives to traditional, fossil-based plastics.
Swiss CDMO Lonza and Danish clinical-stage pharma Allarity Therapeutics have agreed to develop and manufacture anti-cancer therapy dovitinib. The companies are aiming to start manufacturing the product in 2022.
AstraZeneca is building what it said is a “next-generation” active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing plant for small molecules near Dublin, Ireland. A start-up date was not announced for the new facility that will be the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker’s first investment in the country.
Huntsman has completed the initial phases of a project at Conroe, Texas, USA, to expand and widen its portfolio of E-Grade specialty amines, including quaternary amine alternatives to tetramethylammonium hydroxide and related products.
Activist hedge fund Bluebell Capital Partners has joined activist investor Elliott Management, GlaxoSmithKline’s long-time nemesis, in trying to force a leadership shakeup at the UK drugmaker. The pair have called for chief executive Emma Walmsley to reapply for her job.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is said to be considering regulating the increasingly popular practice of chemical recycling. In a notice published in the Federal Register, the environmental watchdog that turned into the opposite during the Trump administration said it wants companies to provide more information on pyrolysis and gasification, with an eye to regulating these processes under the federal Clean Air Act.
Versalis will take full ownership of Italian compounder Finproject, having exercised an option to buy the remaining 60% stake. The Italian chemical company bought a 40% stake in Finproject from owner VEI Capital in July 2020. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Acting quickly after its advisory panel published its guidance, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Sept. 22 announced it was amending its Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for Pfizer/BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine to allow a booster dose to be administered at least six months after completion of the primary series.
The US plans to more than double its commitment to donate Covid-19 vaccines to the developing world, President Joe Biden announced on Sept. 22 at a virtual vaccine summit he organized on the sidelines of the United Nations September general assembly.
Ineos has announced plans to spend more than £1 billion toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions at its Grangemouth site in Scotland to net zero by 2045.
German API specialist PharmaZell and French CDMO Novasep are in exclusive talks about a merger that the companies say would create a leading European platform in the attractive API manufacturing and CDMO space with a complementary set of differentiated technologies and highly diversified base of blue-chip pharma and biotech customers.
US investment group Apollo Global Management has bid for titanium dioxide producer Tronox, according to a report by Reuters. The news comes just days after Apollo entered into exclusive negotiations to buy French PVC maker Kem One.
German pharmaceuticals, chemicals and life sciences group Merck has started up a second production line for silica-based effect pigments at its Gernsheim, Germany, site. The addition to its largest pigment facility worldwide will significantly increase production capacities for silicon dioxide flakes, a special substrate for its Colorstream and Xirona products used in automotive coatings and color cosmetics, the group said.
US technology and engineering group KBR has been awarded a contract by Polish oil and petrochemicals producer PKN Orlen to evaluate the feasibility of plastics recycling projects in Central Europe using KBR’s Hydro-PRT technology. The companies have also signed a Letter of Intent to collaborate on developing future projects.
French PVC maker Kem One is up for sale again. The company said its president and majority shareholder Alain de Krassny, who bought the erstwhile Arkema business out of the bankruptcy of a Swiss investor in 2015, is in exclusive talks about a deal with Apollo Global Management. The proposed sale could be finalized by the end of 2021.
Haldor Topsoe and Sasol have expanded their gas-to-liquids (G2L) collaboration to jointly license and develop their technologies for sustainable liquid fuels and chemicals production through Fischer-Tropsch (FT) technology. The companies originally entered into a partnership to jointly license their GTL technologies in December 2019, but have worked together for more than 20 years.
Phase 2/3 clinical trials with the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine Comirnaty have shown that it is safe, well tolerated and produces robust neutralizing antibody responses in children aged 5 to 11 years, the companies said on Sept. 20. The vaccine partners now plan to submit the data to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and other regulatory agencies around the world “as soon as possible.”
French CDMO Clean Cells will spend €13 million to add a new production facility in Montaigu-Vendée, France, near Nantes. Construction started in July and completion is expected by September 2022.
Belgian-headquartered multinational distributor Azelis and its shareholders have raised €1.77 billion in an initial public offering (IPO) on the Euronext Brussels exchange. Azelis gets €880 million from the offering, while shareholders including private equity firm EQT and PSP Investments receive €891 million.
In a 16-2 vote, the US Food and Drug Administration’s advisory panel on Sept. 17 recommended against supporting president Joe Biden’s plans to offer a booster dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine to everyone over 16 years of age. In the two-pronged decision, the panel said it would recommend a third dose only for those older than 65 and the immunocompromised.
DSM is restructuring its health, nutrition and bioscience activities, while also reviewing options for its materials business, including a possible sale. The move is aimed at accelerating the Dutch group’s ongoing transformation and growth plans centered on benefitting people and the planet.
