US specialty chemical company W. R. Grace has rejected a takeover offer by shareholder 40 North Management, stating it “undervalues the company and is not a basis for further discussion.” The offer at $60 per share valued Grace at $4 billion.
US drugmaker Pfizer and its German development partner BioNTech have reached a final agreement with the European Commission to supply 200 million doses of their mRNA-based Covid19 vaccine candidate to the EU’s member states at an undisclosed price.
Stolt Tankers, the wholly owned subsidiary of Norway’s Stolt-Nielsen, has entered into a joint venture with Germany’s John T. Essberger Group to operate a combined fleet of chemical tankers within Europe.
NextChem, the green chemistry arm of Italian engineering contractor Maire Tecnimont, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with IndianOil to develop industrial projects using NextChem technologies.
US scientific equipment manufacturer Thermo Fisher Scientific and China-based CDMO Innoforce have formed a joint venture to own and operate a new pharma services facility for integrated biologics and sterile drug development and manufacturing in Hangzhou, China. Start date for the new entity is 2022.
Ta’ziz, a joint venture between Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and compatriot holding company ADQ, will invest more than $5 billion in seven chemical anchor projects and related infrastructure within the planned Ruwais Derivatives Park in Abu Dhabi.
Johnson & Johnson is mulling whether to appeal a major financial setback in its ongoing talc baby powder litigation to the US Supreme Court.
Swiss CDMO Lonza has inaugurated the first of two planned state-of-the-art, highly-potent API (HPAPI) suites for antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) drug-linker (payload) manufacturing at its site in Visp, Switzerland. The new facility can handle compounds with occupational exposure levels down to 1ng/m3.
Dutch specialty chemicals and ingredients distributor IMCD has entered into an agreement to buy the pharmaceutical business of compatriot firm Peak International Products for an undisclosed sum.
Neste and South Korean petrochemicals giant LG Chem have formed a long-term partnership with the aim of developing and growing the global biopolymers and biochemicals market, and more specifically, LG Chem’s domestic market.
Phase 3 clinical trials with the mRNA vaccine candidate BNT162b2 being developed by US pharma giant Pfizer and German biotech partner BioNTech have shown it to be more than 90% effective in preventing Covid-19 in participants without evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection, the companies announced in a preliminary look at efficacy.
Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk has agreed to buy US drug delivery company Emisphere Technologies for $1.8 billion.
Following completion of a comprehensive feasibility study, tentative plans for a major petrochemical complex in India have been shelved for now, due to what the prospective international project partners said were global economic uncertainties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Industrial gases giant Linde plans to begin producing green hydrogen at its plant in Ontario, California, in the near future. With the unquantified investment, the enlarged, now UK-based group said it will be able to provide green hydrogen to fuel up to 1,600 vehicles a day and help avoid up to 50,000 t of CO2 per year.
Lummus Technology has won a contract to supply 14 cracking furnaces for a gas chemical complex near Ust-Luga, Leningrad Oblast in Russia.
Israeli crop protection producer Adama has entered into an agreement that will see it take a majority stake in most of Huifeng Bio Agriculture’s synthesis and formulation facilities.
US vaccine manufacturer Moderna has tapped Takeda as marketing partner for its Covid-19 vaccine candidate mRNA-1273f in Japan. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The Japanese drugmaker will import and distribute the vaccine starting in the first half of next year as well as handle local regulatory approvals. The original contract is for 50 million doses.
Celanese will add a new line at its plant in Bishop, Texas, USA, for its GUR brand of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMW-PE) to support significant market growth. The new line will add about 15,000 t/y of capacity by the start of 2022.
India’s ACG, a provider of pharmaceutical packaging, engineering equipment and inspection systems, has acquired a “significant” stake in compatriot start-up Iqgen-X, a contract research organization (CRO) that delivers niche and complex drug development technologies for the pharmaceutical industry.
US-based CDMO Catalent has agreed to acquire Bone Therapeutics’ cell therapy manufacturing subsidiary, Skeletal Cell Therapy Support (SCTS), in Gosselies, Belgium, for $14 million.
The International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) has announced Sanofi as the 2020 Facility of the Year Awards (FOYA) Overall Winner.
Swiss project management and construction services company Proman has joined nine private- and public-sector partners to mark the launch of the North-C-Methanol project, touted as the largest renewable hydrogen-to-methanol complex in the world.
Minaris Regenerative Medicine, a leading contract development and manufacturing organization for cell and gene therapies, has announced plans to invest $64.5 million to significantly expand its facilities in Germany and Japan.
Merck KGaA is expanding its production of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) with a €20 million investment in Asia. Capacity additions are planned at sites in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, and Shanghai, China. The enhanced local capacities are intended to strengthen the German group’s position as a key supplier of high-purity OLED materials for panel makers in the region.
Huntsman recently inaugurated its new plant for aromatic polyester polyols, which began production in May this year at the US chemical producer’s polyurethanes systems house in Kuan Yin, Taiwan.
French pharma Sanofi is boosting once again its immunology portfolio with an agreement to buy Dutch biotech Kiadis for €308 million.
Following an agreement announced in March this year, OMV has completed its purchase of an additional 39% stake in Borealis from Mubadala Investment Company for €4.68 billion.
Azelis has entered into an agreement to buy Bronson and Jacobs Hong Kong and its wholly owned subsidiary in Shanghai, China, from owner Ixom, an Australian chemicals and water treatment distributor. Financial terms were not disclosed.
French and British drugmakers Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) have signed on with Gavi, the global vaccine alliance, to make 200 million doses of their experimental Covid-19 vaccine available to Covax, a global scheme to provide inoculations for developing nations.
BASF has announced it will close two herbicide plants by 2022 as it seeks to strengthen its competitive position. The facilities are located in Knapsack, Germany, where the company currently operates three plants, and Muskegon, Michigan, USA. The closures will affect about 100 workers.
Japanese drugmaker Astellas Pharma has agreed to buy US bioelectronics startup Iota Biosciences. The move follows their R&D agreement signed in August 2019, under which the two firms worked together on activities associated with Iota’s ultrasonic-powered bioelectronic devices, also known as neural dust, in a number of indications.
Lummus Technology and US plastic waste company New Hope Technologies have agreed to cooperate on the marketing and further development of thermal pyrolysis technology.
Germany’s Merck KGaA has agreed to collaborate with Mammoth Biosciences on development, scale-up and commercial production of the US biotech’s CRISPR-based SARS CoV-2 diagnostic test. Mammoth recently secured funding from the US National Institute of Health’s RADx program to scale its CRISPR-based testing workflow.
French contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) Minakem has won the 2020 Pierre Potier prize for its continuous flow process to produce a bio-sourced solvent that repurposes plant waste – notably corn stalk or sugar cane residue.
In its biggest pharma acquisition since the 2006 takeover of Berlin-based women’s specialist Schering, Bayer plans to plunk down up to $4 billion for US biotech firm Asklepios BioPharmaceutical (AskBio). Under the agreed terms, Bayer will pay $2 billion upfront and up to $2 billion more, contingent on certain success milestones.
