NEWS
£1m
Business digest
Funding from Innovate UK awarded to UK company G2O Water Technologies to scale-up a domestic water purification system using graphene technology. The patented system is expected to deliver cheaper and more widely-available drinking water to millions of people around the world. Independent market research suggests that the global market for membranes used in water filtration and purification is worth an estimated $25bn.
>£100m
Investment by paints and coatings major AkzoNobel in its recently opened paint factory in Ashington, UK. The Northumberland plant is the largest global investment by the decorative paints business and will double current UK production levels to 200mL/year, the equivalent of 80m 2.5L cans of Dulux, in up to 33,000 different colours. The plant uses a variety of renewable energy sources, including photovoltaic cells and a biomass boiler, alongside an automated manufacturing process, which saves water, waste and energy. AkzoNobel estimates that the carbon footprint per litre of paint produced at Ashington will be reduced by 50%, compared with the facilities it is replacing.
21,000mt
Finnish drug discovery and development company, Aplagon is to partner with Cadila Pharmaceuticals Sweden, a subsidiary of Cadila Pharmaceuticals India, to develop and commercialise its lead antithrombotic product. Cadila will develop the formulation and commercial-scale manufacturing process; both companies will conduct randomised preclinical and clinical studies in India. Cadila will co-invest a significant part of the projected costs of the clinical studies and will, in return, receive the commercialisation rights for India and a share of future commercialisation proceeds outside India. Aplagon will receive a royalty on Indian sales and will retain commercialisation rights for the antithrombotic products in other jurisdictions outside India.
Life sciences company focused on small molecule therapeutics, Cambrex has installed a large-scale manufacturing capacity at its cGMP facility in Karlskoga, Sweden, and started a three-year construction project to increase the site’s waste water processing capabilities. The waste water treatment plant, costing some $3.5m, will process over 4000m3
of
water each day and handle variations in the composition of effluent. The plant will be completed in 2017, with additional upgrades in 2018 and 2019.
Extra annual capacity of speciality amines from BASF’s new plant to be built at its site in Nanjing Chemical Industry Park, China. The plant, expected to come on stream in 2019, will support the rising demand of these intermediates in Asia.
US-based peptide manufacturer, Cambridge Research Biochemicals (CRB) has signed a licence agreement with Edinburgh Innovations, the innovation management service for the University of Edinburgh, enabling CRB to label custom-made and catalogue peptides with dyes developed by researchers at the university. The agreement will expand CRB’s current dye portfolio, and offer a new range of pre-labelled antimicrobial peptides.
University of Warwick spin-out, Medherant, which develops and commercialises transdermal drug delivery systems, has signed an agreement with an unnamed Japanese transdermal patch company to evaluate the potential of its TEPI Patch technology. A successful outcome could lead to the Japanese company licensing the technology to develop a product for a market where sales are currently > $1bn and rising.
UK life science company, Cypralis has been awarded funding by Innovate UK to work in collaboration with researchers at the University of Liverpool to identify novel inhibitors of pancreatic fibrosis. The feasibility study, which is expected to have applications in several fibrotic diseases, will run until July 2018.
German chemicals major, Merck has opened a customer food safety studio in Bellevue, Washington, US, so that manufacturers of all types of food can collaborate with Merck to develop products for the rapid detection of foodborne pathogens. The centre will give customers access to a complete food safety workflow, from raw materials testing to finished-product safety testing, to prevent hazards within the food chain.
MilliporeSigma, the life science subsidiary of Merck KGaA, is to collaborate with biotechnology start- up Angiex, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, to speed Angiex’s lead oncology antibody drug candidate to clinical use. MilliporeSigma will give Angiex access to end-to-end process development tools, education programmes and training to support its goal. In addition, MilliporeSigma has acquired Natrix Separations, a Canada- based provider of hydrogel membrane products for single-use chromatography, complementing MilliporeSigma’s efforts to drive next-generation bioprocessing technologies.
Germany’s BASF and farm management software company, Proagrica, have signed an agreement to bring a farm management system interface to market. Growers will be able to connect BASF’s digital offer Maglis with different digital farming applications, including their preferred farm management system. Proagrica will ensure that the data shared between Maglis and growers is efficiently transferred and protected. BASF has also signed a joint agreement with bse Engineering to develop small- scale delocalised production units for transforming off-gas CO2
and excess
current generated from renewable sources, but not used by consumers, into methanol. BASF will provide custom- made catalysts for the chemical energy storage system.
12 08 | 2017
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