Under a contract just announced, Baxter BioPharma Solutions will perform fill & finish services for some 60 to 90 million doses of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine in the US this year. The work will take place at the CMO’s facility at Bloomington, Indiana. Part of Baxter International, the company specializes in parenteral pharmaceuticals.
The European Chemical Industry has set out on an ambitious path to become carbon neutral. Germany, as one of the major chemical manufacturing nations, has committed to achieve this goal by 2050. But companies need to translate this industry vision into their specific context.
A trusted adviser to major companies with a chemical industry background, and a Global Expert with the World Economic Forum, Paul Hodges, chairman of New Normal Consulting, reflects on the issues the post-Brexit chemical industry must tackle.
AGC Biologics, a biopharma CDMO, is planning to expand its cell and gene therapy center of excellence in Milan, Italy, to increase capacities and implement viral vector suspension capabilities. Two more floors will be added to the current suite and additional equipment will be installed on the existing floor. The new facilities are scheduled to go into full operation in 2022.
Dutch distributor Barentz has acquired a majority stake in the Noack Group, extending its activities in the Central/East European region and gaining a complementary portfolio of animal nutrition ingredients.
With the race to vaccinate populations against Covid-19 going full steam, health agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Serum Institute of India (SIL), world’s largest vaccine maker, have raised alarm that nationalism and protectionism could lead to an international vaccine trade war that in particular could disadvantage countries with insufficient resources.
PQ Group has agreed to sell its Performance Chemicals business for $1.1 billion to a partnership established by Cerberus Capital Management and Koch Minerals & Trading. The divestment is part of PQ’s strategy, called Simpler + Stronger, which the group said is aimed at driving greater value for its shareholders.
A few weeks ago, Novartis said it was exploring ways to participate in the European Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing effort. In the meantime, it has been busy. On Mar. 4 the Swiss drugmaker signed an initial manufacturing agreement with CureVac to boost the German biotech’s overall vaccine capacity by 50 million doses in 2021 and 200 million doses in 2022.
Germany’s Merck is changing the name of its Performance Materials business segment to Electronics to reflect the strategic realignment the worldwide group has undergone over the past several years and mark what it says is an additional milestone in its “Bright Future” transformation program, begun in 2018.
Honeywell UOP is providing its advanced reforming and aromatics technologies to Hengyi Industries for a proposed petrochemical complex in Pulau Muara Besar, Brunei.
As immunization woes mount, France has done a stunning about-turn and modified age limits it had placed on the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine. Germany may be on the brink of following suit, while Spain and Italy have not yet hinted at any moves in that direction. Earlier, French president Emmanuel Macron had labeled the UK-developed vaccine “quasi ineffective” but now says he would get it himself.
Bayer has announced its intention to offload the Environmental Science Professional business as part of plans to accelerate the strategy implementation of its Crop Science division.
Irish CDMO ICON is to acquire US-based rival PRA Health Sciences in a cash-and-stock deal worth approximately $12 billion. Both boards of directors have unanimously approved the merger.
Another “Big Pharma” company with a stalled candidate of its own is stepping in to help boost national or regional Covid-19 vaccine supply. US president Joe Biden was due to announce on Mar. 2 that Merck & Co will help make the Johnson & Johnson single-shot vaccine that received an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Feb. 27.
In a deal due to close in the second half of this year, privately owned French salt producer Salins is buying Nouryon’s Salt Specialties business, including brands such as JOZO, NEZO, Suprasel, Sanal and KNZ, for an undisclosed sum. The Dutch company’s salt and chlor-alkali business belong to its Nobian arm.
Ineos Phenol and utility group Engie are planning a pilot project in Doel, Belgium, that will use hydrogen in a commercial-scale cogeneration plant, replacing the natural gas feed for generating electricity and heat. Initially, 10% of the gas feed will be replaced with hydrogen and, if all goes well, this will be increased to 20%. Engie is responsible for the design, installation and operation of the technology.
Charles River Laboratories has agreed to buy Cognate BioServices, a cell and gene therapy CDMO, for about $875 million. The purchase is expected to close by the end of March, subject to customary conditions and regulatory clearance.
Following a decline of 2% in 2020, European chemical production is forecast to pick up by 3% in 2021, before growth rates taper off slightly in 2022, but output in that year should still land 2% higher against 2021.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on 27 February granted an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Janssen Biotech, part of US healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson’s pharmaceuticals arm. The “totality of the available data available data,” it said, provides “clear evidence” that the vaccine may be effective in preventing infection from the virus.
Shell has announced plans to produce sustainable aviation fuels together with UK-based ITM Power at its Rhineland refinery in Cologne-Wesseling, Germany. A new Bio-Power-to-Liquid plant would be the first such commercial plant ever, it said.
Arkema is planning to invest in more fluoropolymer capacity in China in order to meet strong demand into lithium-ion batteries, as well as the water filtration, construction coatings and semiconductor industries.
Germany’s Sirion Biotech has signed a license and collaboration agreement with major French pharma Sanofi on viral vector-based gene therapy. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The partners aim to develop improved tissue-selective adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors to realize effective gene therapy treatments for disorders affecting major human organs.
For mRNA vaccine maker Moderna, March is gearing up to roar in like a lion, with the tailwind setting the pace for the year ahead. Reporting 2020 financial results on Feb. 25, the US biotech that before last year had not sold a single product said it expects to take in more than $18 billion in revenue from sales of Covid-19 vaccines during 2021.
Leading US gene therapy CDMO Catalent is buying all shares of another CDMO in the same field, plasmid DNA (pDNA) specialist’s Delphi Genetics, headquartered at Gosselie, Belgium. Concurrently, the New Jersey-based company is launching pDNA development and manufacturing services at its Rockville, Maryland, facility.
Vienna, Austria-based polyolefins and fertilizer producer Borealis plans to invest €17.6 million in a new Regenerative Thermal Oxidizer (RTO) for its polyolefins plants in Porvoo, Finland, as part of an effort to significantly lower the site’s CO2 emission.
Spanish engineering contractor Tecnicas Reunidas has signed a contract with Turkey’s Sasa Polyester to build a PTA plant. Located at Adana, Turkey, the plant will have a capacity of 1.5 million t/y. The value of the contract was not disclosed, although the total cost of the project is estimated by Sasa at $935 million.
Brazilian petchems and plastic group Braskem is spending $61 million to expand its production capacity for green ethylene, the sugarcane ethanol-derived main feedstock for renewable polyethylene, at its plant in Triunfo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. With the expansion, expected to be completed in Q4 2022, capacity will rise from 200,000 t/y currently to 260,000 t/y.
Danish coatings manufacturer Hempel has agreed to buy Wattyl, an Australian and New Zealand producer of architectural and protective paints and coatings, from owner Sherwin-Williams. Financial terms of the transaction, which is expected to close by the end of March, were not disclosed.
On the same day that Sanofi and GSK announced the start of a new Phase 2 study of their delayed adjuvanted recombinant protein-based Covid-19 vaccine candidate, Sanofi disclosed it had signed an agreement to manufacture 12 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose adenovirus-based Covid vaccine.
After completing the purchase of DuPont’s nutrition and biosciences unit, International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF) is looking to divest at least two of its expanded businesses, the Bloomberg news agency said, citing “people with knowledge of the matter.”
For the report "Value Creation in Chemicals 2020: Bouncing Back from a Year of Adversity", Boston Consulting Group (BCG) analyzed the development of the global chemicals market in the Covid-19 crisis in 2020 and in the years 2015 to 2019 using key figures. The result shows: The current crisis is forcing companies to increase their resilience. The entire value chain, exposure to the end industry, and technical, commercial and digital capabilities must be put to the test in order to respond more effectively to changes in the markets in the future.
Yara International has signed a Letter of Intent with Statkraft – Europe’s largest generator of renewable energy – and investment group Aker Horizons to establish a large-scale green ammonia plant in Norway. The partners plan to electrify and decarbonize Yara’s existing ammonia plant in Porsgrunn, targeting green hydrogen and green ammonia opportunities within shipping, agriculture and industrial applications.
The Belgian cities of Antwerp and Bruges have agreed to merge their respective ports, with the former taking an 80.2% share in the combined port and Bruges taking 19.8%. The merger remains subject to a number of conditions, including approval from Belgian competition authorities.
For several days, the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine Comirnaty (BNT162b2) has dominated international headlines. From the market’s perspective, the most significant news is that the partners, as hinted earlier, have been able to reformulate the doses to facilitate storage at a higher temperature.
New US president Joe Biden has pledged to release altogether $4 billion in US funding to support Gavi, the global vaccine alliance. The president was expected to announce an initial $2 billion in funding at the virtual G-7 summit of the world’s largest economies on Feb. 19.
