Two EU authorities, the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), are poised to begin reviewing a draft assessment of the safety of glyphosate. The license for the active ingredient in the Monsanto-developed Roundup herbicide comes up for renewal at the end of 2022, and the opinions will form the basis for a decision by the European Commission.
Yposkesi, a French CDMO specializing in cell and gene therapies, has started building a second commercial bioproduction facility, known as project SKY. The plant is being designed to be cGMP- compliant with both European and US regulations. Operations are expected to start in 2023.
The Integrated Oxides & Derivatives (IOD) business of Indorama Ventures (IVL), Thailand-based global petrochemical producer best known as the world’s largest producer of PET resin, is developing a new technology center at The Woodlands, Texas.
In a somewhat unusually structured deal, Swiss specialty chemicals producer Clariant has reached a definitive agreement with a consortium of Heubach Group and private equity investor SK Capital Partners to unload most of its pigments business. Following completion of the transaction, expected in the first half of 2022, Clariant will reinvest in the business, taking a 20% share. The shares of the other partners have not been revealed.
Indian state-owned oil and gas group Indian Oil Corp has entered into an agreement with the Gujarat government to build additional petrochemical plants at its refinery in Vadodara. Investment costs are estimated at $3.3 billion.
Eastman Chemical has agreed to sell several rubber additives lines and related technology assets of its tire additives business to an affiliate of One Rock Capital Partners for $800 million. The deal does not include the Impera and other performance resins product lines of the tire additives business, which accounted for 14% of the company’s 2020 sales of $8.47 billion.
The (almost) worst-case scenario in the mix-up of Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine at the Baltimore, Maryland, plant of CDMO Emergent BioSolutions apparently has occurred. After an extensive FDA probe at the site, it was determined that around 60 million J&J doses will have to be discarded, the newspaper New York Times reported.
US food giant Cargill and German distribution and marketing group Helm have formed a joint venture called Qore to help brand owners replace fossil-based chemistries with bio-based intermediates. The size of their individual stakes in the jv was not revealed.
Within a $32 million project to upgrade a drug production plant, Bentley Systems Synchro 4D digitalized the construction monitoring to reduce project delivery time.
As expected, US president Joe Biden, on his first international trip since taking office in January, announced plans to donate 500 million doses of the Pfize/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine to around 100 countries over the next year. The plans were leaked by the newspaper Washington Post hours before the president’s departure with First Lady Jill Biden for the G7 summit in the UK.
BASF is forming a majority-owned 51:49 joint venture with Hunan Shanshan Energy to make cathode active materials (CAM) and their precursors (PCAM) in China, the world’s the largest battery materials market. The chemicals are a key component of lithium-ion batteries, which are in strong demand, thanks to the growing market for electric vehicles.
LyondellBasell's Spheripol PP technology has been chosen by Inner Mongolia Baofeng New Material for a 2 million t/y complex in China.
Three independent executives nominated by US-based activist investor Engine No 1 have won seats on ExxonMobil’s board.
Denmark’s Haldor Topsoe has set up a dedicated green hydrogen arm with the aim of accelerating its electrolysis business. The newly formed organization will leverage Topsoe’s knowhow and expertise in solid oxide electrolysis, which it said produces up to 30% more green hydrogen from the same amount of renewable power than standard technologies.
IMCD has acquired Shanghai Yuanhe Chemicals, a Chinese distributor of specialty coatings, textile and ink solutions. The deal boosts IMCD China's portfolio for the pharmaceutical, food and nutrition, plastics and personal care industries.
As part of a multi-pronged effort to fix disruptions in crucial US industrial supply chains, President Joe Biden has announced that his administration will establish a public-private consortium to select 50 to 100 essential medicines from the Food and Drug Administration’s list to be the focus of an enhanced “onshoring effort" for pharmaceutical production.
US CDMO Cambrex has upgraded its facility in Tallin, Estonia. The installation of a new 160-liter reactor train at the kilogram-scale laboratory has expanded Cambrex’s capabilities to manufacture material for clinical trials and allow early-phase projects to be developed further prior to technical transfer and scale-up.
The US Supreme Court has declined to hear Johnson & Johnson’ appeal against a $2 billion judgment in favor of 22 ovarian cancer sufferers who claimed they contracted the cancer from using the healthcare group’s talc products.
Bayer has announced plans to acquire Noria Therapeutics and PSMA Therapeutics, thereby obtaining exclusive rights to a differentiated alpha radionuclide investigational compound based on actinium-225 and a small molecule directed towards prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA).
In his interview with CHEManager, Hidde van der Wal, CEO of chemical distributor Barentz, talks about the company’s performance in 2020 and latest strategic developments.
Solvay has appointed Carmelo Lo Faro, previously president of the company’s composite materials business unit, as president of the materials segment, effective immediately.
Pembina Pipeline has agreed to buy Inter Pipeline for about C$8.3 billion in an all-stock transaction that would create one of Canada’s biggest energy groups with a pro forma enterprise value of C$53 billion.
US-based thermoplastics distributor Nexeo Plastics has acquired Italy’s Nevicolor for an undisclosed sum.
After losing Emergent BioSolutions as a Covid-19 vaccine production partner, AstraZeneca has been looking for a new CDMO to fulfil its $1.2 billion contract with the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). Citing people familiar with the matter, the newspaper New York Times reports that the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker is now in talks with the US government about transferring dose manufacture to Catalent.
Lummus Technology’s Green Circle business is working with Polish tire producer Synthos to commercialize the latter’s biobutadiene technology. In a first step, the companies will develop a feasibility study for a plant producing 20,000 t/y of biobutadiene, which will form the basis for an investment decision.
As it ramps up production on three continents, US Covid-19 vaccine manufacturer Moderna is expanding its collaborations with CDMO suppliers in Europe, the US and Asia. At the beginning of June, the US biotech announced new supply agreements with Lonza and Thermo-Fisher. In late May, it inked new deals with Aldevron and Samsung Biologics in Asia to handle various stages of the mRNA shot’s production.
The EU Commission’s ambitious plan for a European Green Deal, launched shortly before the pandemic struck in early 2020, aims to make the continent the world’s first climate-neutral region by 2050. The goals spelled out in January last year call for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% up to 2030, compared with 1990 levels.
Following all approvals, German specialty chemicals producer Lanxess completed the sale of its organic leather chemicals business to TFL Ledertechnik on Jun. 1. The buyer is a global supplier of leather chemicals and a portfolio company of US private equity investor Black Diamond Capital Management.
US drugmaker Bristol Myers Squibb has signed an exclusive license agreement for Agenus’ proprietary bispecific antibody program AGEN1777, that blocks TIGIT and a second undisclosed target.
US chemical and specialty materials producer Eastman has announced plans to increase capacity of Naia filament yarn at its site in Barcelona, Spain. The company said the project will lift capacity by 30% by mid-2021 and more than 50% by the end of 2022, and will serve rapidly growing demand. Naia is a cellulosic fiber made from sustainably sourced wood.
BASF has wrapped up the sale of its Kankakee, Illinois production site for an undisclosed sum to an affiliate of US private equity group One Rock Capital Partners. The sale also includes the associated businesses of vegetable-oil-based raw material sterols and natural vitamin E, anionic surfactants and esters produced at the site, which are being rebranded as Kensing.
India’s Bharat Biotech, which specializes in infectious diseases, has announced it is adding new manufacturing capacity for its Covid-19 shot known as Covaxin, India’s first indigenous vaccine. The expansion will go on stream in this year’s fourth quarter at the Ankleshwar site operated by wholly owned subsidiary Chiron Behring Vaccines.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has validated the Sinovac-CoronaVac Covid-19 shot produced by Beijing-based Sinovac for emergency use, adding it to the growing list of already approved coronavirus vaccines. The others are made by Pfizer/BioNTech, AstraZeneca-SK Bio, Serum Institute of India, AstraZeneca EU, Janssen, Moderna and Sinopharm. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is currently reviewing the Chinese shot.
Harke Pharma has expanded its distribution partnership through Eastern Europe with BOAI NKY, China’s largest PVP and PVPP manufacturer.
In the drive to reach growth objectives, or to maintain and enhance “critical mass”, mergers & acquisitions (M&A) has been a theme for the chemical distribution industry for years. The industry leaders (by size and geographic reach) were all built through a series of such transactions. The practice is further trickling down to the smaller and mid-sized company layer of the sector, and more distributors espouse external growth options.
