Umicore‘s business unit Precious Metals Chemistry has signed an agreement with Evonik to take over the German specialty chemicals company’s intellectual property in the field of metathesis chemistry and cross-coupling catalysis.

The addition of Evonik’s Catmetium and Catacxium product families, according to the Brussels, Belgium-based corporation contributes to further expanding Umicore’s portfolio of advanced homogeneous catalysts and related technologies.

Cross-coupling catalysis and metathesis chemistry are uniquely suitable technologies for the efficient preparation of the complex chemical structures used in the pharmaceutical, fine chemical, industrial chemical and polymer industries.

This intellectual property takeover enables Umicore to provide its customers full access to proprietary, patent-protected cutting-edge technologies, enabling them to develop more efficient syntheses, produce more competitively and sustainably and keep or extend their leading

positions in their own markets.

Recently, Umicore Precious Metals Chemistry has been actively expanding its existing cross-coupling catalyst and metathesis chemistry portfolio with the purchase of Pasadena, California-based Materia’s $27 million metathesis catalyst business early in 2018 as well as the licensing of Buchwald precatalysts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in mid-2018, and Hazari’s palladium-based precatalysts from Yale University in April 2019.