Strategy

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A Flexible Chemical Business Model

Actylis, leading global manufacturer and sourcing expert of critical raw materials and performance ingredients for the life sciences and specialty chemicals markets, made its debut in September 2022. The new CDMO was created from US-based fine and specialty chemicals distributor Aceto. Gilles Cottier, CEO of Actylis, has played a tremendous role in Aceto’s transformation into the new Actylis brand. Ralf Kempf and Michael Reubold asked Cottier about the reasons for creating the new brand identity, the challenges of combining so many companies, and Actylis' strategy going forward.

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Going Inland

Historically, China’s chemical industry has mainly been located in coastal provinces, with Shandong as the biggest and Jiangsu as the second biggest province by chemical sales, while the coastal regions of Hebei, Tianjin, Zhejiang, Liaoning and Guangdong are also among the top ten producers of chemicals.

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Chemicals M&A Review 2022 and Outlook 2023

2021 was historic for chemical M&As, it was a record-breaking year in terms of total value of deals. Therefore, it was expected that 2022 would only build upon this. However, the combination of high interest rates, supply chain bottlenecks and geopolitical instability saw both the number and value of deals take a significant hit throughout 2022.

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The Materials Revolution

Companies in the materials industry – including chemical companies – are seeing a revolution that is likely to drive a new wave of growth. To succeed, however, they will need to rethink their value chains, expand manufacturing in the region, and take advantage of digitally powered approaches to innovation.

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The Energy Crisis as Opportunity

The current crisis, exacerbated by the economic downturn and war in Ukraine, can be an opportunity to reduce dependence on fossil feedstocks and explore sustainable alternatives.

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EU Energy and Supply: What Will Happen Next?

The European Commission proposed last month an emergency intervention in Europe’s energy markets to address recent dramatic price rises as the EU faces the effects of a severe mismatch between energy demand and supply. What is in the proposal?

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The Evolution of Chemical Industry M&A

Every year, the chemical industry sees hundreds of mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Traditional M&A drivers, such as consolidation and portfolio extension, are still important. But many transactions also show that the nature of M&A is evolving, as chemical companies look for ways to contend with ongoing volatility and move to a more sustainable future.

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The Future of Outsourcing

The increasing complexity in drug development and the highly competitive industry landscape are creating a dramatic shift in how pharmaceutical and biotech companies plan for and execute drug development and production.

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Sustainability and the Chemicals Industry

The chemicals industry is one of the world’s largest industrial sectors, worth €3,471 billion in 2020. It includes producers of industrial chemicals, polymers, pesticides, food and feed additives, and cosmetics, and is growing rapidly. By some estimates it will reach almost $22,000 billion by 2060.

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The Japanese Pharma Market

Japan continues to be one of the largest pharmaceutical markets in the world, making up approximately 7% of the global share. Historically, Japan has been viewed as insular compared to other developed markets such as Europe or the US, with foreign companies reporting high barriers to entry.

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Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)

The primary goal for any manufacturing or process organization is to produce a profit and return on net asset (RONA) to shareholders and other stakeholders. Safety and environmental performance are secondary goals – not secondary in importance, but no manufacturing plant was ever built with the sole and explicit purpose of being safe and environmentally responsible.

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Challenging the Status Quo

Management pays a lot of attention to new ideas and cutting-edge technologies, but most of their resources are consumed by mature legacy technologies that are often not actively and rigorously managed. A visual matrix can help teams understand which technologies offer the greatest long-term potential for businesses.

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Ramping Up Biomanufacturing Capacity

Biomanufacturing for both traditional biologics and new modalities, such as cell and gene therapies, continues to be an active area of investment for CDMOs/CMOS. Some of the major investments by the larger CMDOs/CMOs are outlined in this article.

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The EU Goes Green

The EU Green Deal sets a high bar for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and its impact will be felt across industries. But the chemical sector’s unique nature means that it will be more deeply affected than other industries – and more deeply involved in making net zero a reality, as well.

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The Upswing of the Superstars

For its annual report "Value Creation in Chemicals 2021 – Ten Years of Steady Growth – and a Few Superstars," the strategy consultancy Boston Consulting Group examined the performance of leading international chemical companies from 2011 to 2020. The long-term perspective shows that the industry has mastered serious market downturns with astonishing confidence.

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Pharmaceutical Global Entity Portfolio Management

In March 2022, Mercator by Citco published a report that provides direct insights into the practice and dynamics of Global Entity Portfolio Management (GEPM) within the pharmaceuticals sector – based on real-life data – when these businesses have been at the epicenter of one of the most significant global disrupters in modern times.

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Chemistry Shapes the Future

In his interview with CHEManager, Jeff Zhu, chairman of the Chinese Association of International Chemical Manufacturers (AICM), talks about the industry’s role in helping achieve China’s carbon-neutrality goal.

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Environmental Reform of China’s Chemical Industrial Parks

In the past 20 years, the chemical industry in China has grown rapidly and today accounts for close to 40% of worldwide chemical-industry revenue. Understanding environment-related regulatory and policy shifts now in full swing in China is critical to ensuring compliance and reducing business interruption risks for chemical companies either operating in or sourcing from China.

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Precision — Passion — Patience

The positive impacts of Predictive Maintenance are broad and should be considered holistically. No one ever said that nurturing a perfect rose garden was simple, but the results can be dramatic.

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Short-Term Reshoring

The second part of the 2021 CPhI Annual Report looks ahead to predict the pharma manufacturing, therapeutic and technology environment in 2030.

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A Pivotal Move to Net-Zero

Leading global chemical companies and the World Economic Forum (WEF) have announced that they are entering an agreement to formalize the Low-Carbon Emitting Technologies (LCET) initiative into a stand-alone entity by the end of 2023, to share early-stage risks and co-invest in developing and upscaling low-carbon emitting technologies.

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Sustainable Hydrogen

If you follow the daily news on climate protection and the promotion of hydrogen technologies, you sometimes get a sense of déjà vu: Didn't this already exist 20 years ago? What was implemented at that time? What sustainable hydrogen-based technologies can we expect today?

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Managing Supply for Complex Biotherapeutics

Successfully managing the drug substance manufacturing of Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADCs) requires a sophisticated understanding of the technological development process and access to a range of large- and small-molecule manufacturing assets.

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Processes4Planet: EU Cross-Sectorial R&I

The Processes4Planet (P4Planet) partnership’s goal is to transform the European process industries to make them circular and achieve overall climate neutrality at EU level by 2050, while enhancing their global competitiveness.

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