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.
The Austrian government is sharing a third of the cost of a €150 million upgrade Novartis' generics unit Sandoz is stemming at its Kundl, Austria, facility. The Swiss drugmaker claims this is the last remaining integrated production chain for antibiotics in the Western world.
After teaming up with Germany’s BioNTech to develop a vaccine for Covid-19, US drugs giant Pfizer is joining US Gilead Sciences on the therapeutic side. The biopharma company’s antiviral remdesivir is currently favored as a treatment for the novel coronavirus.
In a much heeded licensing deal, AstraZeneca (AZ) has awarded Chinese pharma BioKangta sole commercial rights to its AZD1222 Covid-19 vaccine candidate in the People’s Republic. The UK drugmaker is developing the adenovirus vector-based vaccine on behalf of Oxford University, which created it.
Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has struck a deal with the US government worth just over $1 billion to supply 100 million doses of subsidiary Janssen’s SARS-CoV-2 investigational vaccine, Ad26.COV2.S. The terms apply solely to manufacturing of the vaccine in the US but the company suggests it could be distributed worldwide.
Last week’s announcement that photography group Eastman Kodak had received a 25-year, $765 million US government loan to produce active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) took the market by surprise. The plan was said to be to secure a national emergency supply, in order to reduce dependence on Chinese and Indian imports.
Swiss CDMO Lonza is expanding its microbial manufacturing facility in Visp, Switzerland, to add mid-scale (3,000 l) commercial manufacturing for multiple customers and in particular to supply a long-term partner, France’s Laboratoires Servier, with active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) therapies.
US chemical producer Ashland said it has reached a “definitive agreement” to sell its maleic anhydride (MA) business and the production plant at Neal, West Virginia, to AOC Materials for $100 million. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2020, pending all approvals.
The Covid-19 vaccine partnership of Germany’s BioNTech and US drugs giant Pfizer inked its third supply pact in a week on Jul. 31. This deal, with the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW), follows separate agreements with the US and UK signed in the two preceding days.
Wacker Biotech, CDMO subsidiary of the Munich-based chemical group, is investing a mid-double-digit-million euro sum in its production facilities for biologics, LMPs (live microbial products) and vaccines at the Amsterdam site it acquired two years ago.
In a study carried out by an independent laboratory, the Rely On Virkon broad-spectrum surface disinfectant produced by Lanxess was shown to inactivate the SARS-CoV-2 virus, also known as Covid-19, rapidly, the German specialty chemicals company reports.
The European Commission has signed a €63 million contract with Gilead Sciences to deliver batches of Veklury, Gilead’s name for the antiviral remdesivir, to the EU’s 27 member states as well as the UK, starting in early August.
European officials recently began talking to companies developing Covid-19 vaccines about supplying the EU’s 27 member states, in hope that none would fall behind bigger markets such as the US, which began making exclusive deals early on. Now Reuters suggests the talks may have hit a snag.
The administration of US president Donald Trump canceled a planned meeting with pharmaceutical industry representatives in Washington on Jul. 28 after none said they planned to attend. The meeting had been called to discuss drug prices after the president announced four executive orders on Jul. 24.
Through an acquisition dating back 14 years, BASF is embroiled in the same type of litigation trap as compatriot Bayer currently faces. The Ludwigshafen group’s US catalyst subsidiary formerly known as Engelhard, in conjunction with the New Jersey company’s former law firm, has just reached an out-of-court settlement of lawsuits alleging its talc was contaminated with asbestos.
US biotechs Catalent and Humanigen are extending their standing collaboration on lenzilumab, Humanigen’s proprietary anti-human granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GCM-CSF) monoclonal antibody, with a new supply agreement covering Phase 3 clinical studies.
French chemical producer Arkema is planning to acquire high-performance thermobonding adhesive powders manufacturer Fixatti. The move is aimed at strengthening subsidiary Bostik’s global offering of high value-added technologies in hotmelt adhesive solutions for niche applications in the construction, technical coating, battery, automotive and textile printing industries.
US chemicals and plastics producer Dow plans to cut its workforce by 6% in response to the coronavirus crisis, CEO Jim Fitterling said on July 23 while presenting financial results for Q2 2020. The plans, he said, reflect management’s expectations of an uneven recovery from the ongoing pandemic.
The world’s governments are signing vaccine supply pacts fast and furiously now, as the world continues to hope an effective prevention against Covid-19 will be found soon. Days after signing on with the UK government, German biotech BioNTech – working with American drugs giant Pfizer – has inked a deal with the US and is reportedly also talking to the EU.
In a more than four-day marathon session, marked in part by acrimonious discussions, EU leaders passed both the planned €750 million coronavirus recovery package and a new €1.1 trillion seven-year budget in the early morning hours of July 21.
In the ongoing litigation over whether Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide causes cancer, Bayer has suffered another setback, losing its appeal of the first of three US jury verdicts against it – even though the California Court of Appeals in San Francisco further slashed the 2018 damage award to $20.4 million.
BASF and Thyssenkrupp have signed a joint development agreement to expand their cooperation on the Thyssenkrupp’s Steam Active Reforming (STAR process). The engineering group’s proprietary dehydrogenation process is used to produce propylene from propane feedstocks or iso-butylene from iso-butane feedstocks, using an exceptionally stable catalyst.
The UK has signed an agreement to secure 90 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines developed by Germany’s BioNTech and France’s Valneva. The deals, for which financial terms were not disclosed, foresee taking 30 million doses from the German and 60 million from the French company.
Ineos has launched a €3.6 billion leveraged loan – split between euros and US dollars – to refinance existing debt and reduce its term loan margins. Barclays, Citi and JP Morgan are global coordinators, alongside joint book runners BMO, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, ING and Lloyds.
German chemical producer Lanxess is realigning its water treatment business, divesting its reverse osmosis membrane activities to Suez and strengthening its ion exchange resins business to focus on high-end specialty applications.
As the European Council meets tomorrow, July 17, in Brussels for its first in-person session since the coronavirus forced business, offices and governments into virtual reality, along with budgetary matters the heads of the 27-member states will debate a European Recovery Plan.
Under the name M Lab, Germany’s Merck has opened a new collaborative drug development center in Pudong, Shanghai, China. The facility with lab space of around 10,000 m2 is the largest of the pharmaceutical, chemicals and life science group’s nine such centers worldwide and is located in the heart of Shanghai’s biomedical sciences and research community.
The European Commission has fined Swiss specialty chemicals producer Clariant €155.8 million for its role in an ethylene purchasing scheme that also implicated other chemical producers, including US-based Celanese.
The UK will not participate in a plan to distribute a potential coronavirus vaccine to Europe’s most vulnerable citizens first. Tim Barrow, the UK’s ambassador to the EU, said in a letter to the European Commission the British government would not join the effort because as a non- EU member it would have no decision-making power in negotiations about purchases.
Bayer has backed away from plans to create a science advisory panel to help decide still outstanding claims from US plaintiffs that Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup caused their non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
Germany’s BioNTech is confident it will be ready to seek regulatory approval for its mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccine by the end of this year, its co-founder and chief executive Ugur Sahin said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
Bayer’s relief over its recent deal to settle three-quarters of its outstanding Roundup-related US lawsuits for more than $10 billion altogether could be short-lived.
CordenPharma has expanded peptide manufacturing capacity at its GMP API facility in Boulder, Colorado, USA, to accommodate what it said is “a large spike in demand” for peptide APIs and to continue its overall growth strategy.
After it emerged last week that the US federal government had nailed down the lion’s share of the world’s supply of the antiviral remdesivir, Gilead Sciences’ new drug being touted as a promising treatment for Covid-19, the EU has held talks with the US drugmaker.
Brazilian national oil group Petroleo Brasileiro (Petrobras) is reportedly within six months of reaching a consensus with construction group Odebrecht on a new shareholder agreement for petrochemicals producer Braskem.
