Business digest


Takeda America Holdings, a subsidiary of Takeda Pharmaceutical, is acquiring privately-owned clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company LigoCyte Pharmaceuticals for an upfront payment of $60m, with future consideration based on the progress of development projects. LigoCyte specialises in the development of innovative vaccine products and is headquartered in Bozeman, Montana, US. Takeda has also entered an agreement with privately-held research-based pharmaceutical company Advinus Therapeutics to initiate a three-year discovery collaboration focused on novel targets for major therapeutic areas, including inflammation, CNS, and metabolic diseases.


Drug discovery company Evotec has entered a five-year, multi-target collaboration with Bayer Pharma to develop three clinical candidates for the treatment of endometriosis.


Craigavon, Northern Ireland-headquartered pharma services provider Almac is to collaborate with DSM Pharmaceutical Products to provide sustainable manufacturing services to the pharmaceutical industry in the field of biocatalysis. The agreement allows both parties access to their enzyme platform technologies, services and expertise for the manufacturing of APIs.


Pfizer and China’s Zhejiang Hisun Pharmaceuticals have established Hisun- Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, a jv to develop, manufacture and commercialise off-patent pharmaceuticals in China and global markets.


European chemical distributor Azelis has sold its international composites business to raw materials distributor Velox.


Mallinckrodt, the US-based pharmaceuticals business of healthcare specialist Covidien, is to acquire CNS Therapeutics, a privately held US speciality pharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercialising products for site-specific administration to the central nervous system to treat neurological disorders and intractable chronic pain.


German major BASF is to acquire Iowa, US- headquartered crop protection specialist Becker Underwood for $1.02 billion. The German chemicals giant is also to invest over €200m to scale up and further integrate production and formulation for several key fungicides in Germany and the US and has inaugurated a global dermatology laboratory in Tarrytown, New York.


The Institute for Animal Health has been renamed the Pirbright Institute, after the Surrey, UK, village where it is headquartered.


18 Chemistry&Industry • November 2012


Find C&I online at www.soci.org/chemistryandindustry


Styron has worked with French automotive company Renault to produce the first full- thermoplastic, monomaterial hatch-back produced in series for the New Renault Clio. Produced from three separate parts formed from Inspire long glass fibre polypropylene, the lift gate was designed to achieve a 10% weight reduction and be easily recyclable.


Australian oral drug producer Mayne Pharma is to acquire Metrics, a privately-owned, US-based provider of contract development services to the pharma industry, for US$105m plus up to US$15m in earn-out payments.


Energy major BP has agreed to sell its interests in purified terephthalic acid (PTA) production in Malaysia to India’s Reliance Industries for $230m. The agreement covers BP’s 100% equity in BP Chemicals (Malaysia), located at Kuantan on the east coast of Malaysia.


Ineos Technologies and environmental science and technology company Accsys Technologies have formed a 50:50 jv to further develop and commercialise Accsys’ Tricoya technology on a worldwide basis. The new business will trade under the name of Tricoya Technologies. The jv will have exclusive global rights to its proprietary acetylation technology for the production and licensing of Tricoya for use in medium density fibreboard (MDF), particle board and wood plastic composites.


Spanish laboratory equipment manufacturer Telstar has been contracted to supply and install two new pharmaceutical plants for Bangladesh- based Square Pharmaceuticals. In the first project, Telstar will manage the construction of a plant for the production of oral solids. The second installation will be a production facility for parenterals in small and large volume formats.


Independent US drug formulation development and manufacturing company Bend Research and US major Dow Chemical are collaborating to provide science-based spray-dried dispersion (SDD) solutions and select enabling new polymers for poorly soluble oral drugs.


BASF and the SGL Group are to jointly develop a composite material based on a reactive PA system and carbon fibres. Low-viscosity highly reactive caprolactam formulations and new matrix systems with carbon fibre surface treatment will combine in a faster process for the production of lightweight, high strength structural components for automotive mass production.


Polyaryletherketones producer Victrex Polymer Solutions is to increase production capacity for its Victrex PEEK polymers by around 70%, reflecting growth potential across a wide range of applications in the transport, industrial and electronics sectors.


UK-based drug discovery specialist Cyclofluidic has opened a new laboratory in Welwyn Garden City, UK. The facility houses the first two production versions of the company’s integrated discovery platform, which uses microfluidic flow chemistry, online biochemical assays and automated drug design algorithms to make and screen potential drug molecules.


German major Bayer MaterialScience is to invest €50m in a plant to produce the speciality bisphenol precursor for its Apec heat-resistant polymer at the chemical industry centre in Bitterfeld, Germany. The plant will be operated by Greppin, Germany-based Hi-Bis and is due to come onstream in mid-2014.


The University of York, UK, has entered a partnership with Switzerland’s Chemspeed Technologies to modernise the way chemical reactions are screened and evaluated. Under the agreement, the company will invest £750,000 to provide two robotic platforms for parallel synthesis to be housed in the research unit at the university’s department of chemistry.


Merck Millipore has opened its advanced GMP bioproduction facility in Martillac, France.


German major Evonik Industries has begun basic planning for a new methyl methacrylate (MMA) production plant using Aveneer technology at its site in Mobile, Alabama, US. The facility will have a production capacity of 120,000t/year and is expected to come onstream in mid-2015.


German generic drugs producer Stada Arzneimittel has completed the sale, through a partial management buyout, of its Russian production facilities, Makiz Pharma, Moscow, and Skopin Pharmaceutical Plant, Ryazanskaya, to DMN Invest of Moscow.


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