December, the firm shut down a polyisoprene facility in Pernis, the Netherlands, in
anticipation of the move to Belpre. Kraton
sees a growing market for polyisoprene in
medical products, where natural rubber latex can provoke allergic reactions. The firm
plans to complete the Belpre plant modifications by mid-2011.—MSR
MITRA BIOTECH LAUNCHES IN INDIA
Bangalore, India-based Mitra Biotech has
snagged funding and a partner in its first
days of business. The translational biology
research company was recently founded by
scientists from MIT and Harvard Medical
School, including MIT’s Charles L. Cooney
and Harvard’s Shiladitya Sengupta. Out of
the gate, it won an undisclosed investment
from Accel Partners and the Indian-govern-ment-backed Kitven Fund 2. Mazumdar-Shaw Cancer Center, a hospital in Bangalore, will work with Mitra on an analytical
diagnostic platform for personalized cancer
treatments.—LJ
MERCK TO SHUTTER NEW JERSEY SITES
Merck & Co. plans to close three sites in
New Jersey as part of a consolidation fol-
lowing its 2009 acquisition of Schering-
Plough. The company will close its Rose-
land and Lafayette sites this year and its
Union site in 2012. Merck did not specify
the number of jobs that will be eliminated,
but it did say a “significant number” of
personnel will relocate to other Merck
facilities. The company, with headquarters
in Whitehouse Station, N. J., has other New
Jersey sites in Rahway, Kenilworth, and
Summit. Merck says it will employ 12,000
people across these four sites.—RM
EXECUTIVES CHANGE AT BAYER UNITS
Bayer has named new executives to head
its CropScience and HealthCare groups.
BAYER
Peterson
Sandra E. Peterson, 51,
joins CropScience’s
management board on
July 1 and succeeds the
retiring Friedrich Ber-
schauer as chairman
on Oct. 1. Peterson is
now head of Bayer’s
medical care division.
Jörg Reinhardt, 54,
former chief operating
officer of Novartis,
becomes chairman of the HealthCare group
on Aug. 15. Reinhardt will replace Arthur
J. Higgins, who left on April 30. Marijn E.
Dekkers, management board member,
heads HealthCare in the interim.—MSR
BIOTAGE ACQUIRES MIP TECHNOLOGIES
Biotage has acquired MIP Technologies,
a privately held developer of molecularly
imprinted polymers. Both firms are based
in Sweden. Biotage will pay about $2.2
million up front and more based on sales
milestones through the end of 2015. MIP’s
specialty materials are used by food, environmental, and pharmaceutical labs for
separations. As a supplier of technologies
for medicinal and analytical chemistry,
Biotage says the acquisition will expand
its sample prep business and its sale of
consumable products.—AMT
PURDUE RESEARCH PARKS WILL CLOSE CHAO CENTER
Purdue Research Parks, run by Purdue University’s Research Foundation, is closing
the Chao Center for Industrial Pharmacy
& Contract Manufacturing, in West Lafayette, Ind. Initially funded by a $5 million
gift, the five-year-old center wasn’t able to
become self-sustaining in supplying services to pharmaceutical industry customers, Purdue says. It also produced legacy
and small-volume drugs, such as sero-mycin, one of a limited number of drugs
effective against multi-drug-resistant
tuberculosis.—AMT
BUSINESS
ROUNDUP
metric tons per year when
it goes onstream in the
second half of 2013.
in the U.S. and Braskem
in Brazil.
for the petrochemical and
petroleum sectors.
the oligonucleotide-based
drug.
H. B. FULLER plans to
exit the European polysulfide insulating glass
sealants business, which
it acquired from Henkel
in 2006, because the
business has become a
commodity operation.
Sales in 2009 were $25
million. The firm plans to
take an after-tax charge
of $8.1 million to account
for severance and asset
impairment costs.
AKZONOBEL will spend
$22 million to build a
plant for organic peroxide
plastics additives at its
site in Ningbo, China. The
plant will be part of a previously announced $360
million complex that also
will make ethyleneamines
and ethoxylated products.
PERSTORP has doubled
production of dipenta-
erythritol at its Bruch-
hausen, Germany, facility
and says it is on track
to nearly triple capacity
by the end of the year.
Demand for the chemical
is growing in high-solids
coatings and lead-free
polyvinyl chloride applica-
tions, the Swiss firm says.
SIGMA-ALDRICH Fine
Chemicals will spend
$6.25 million to expand
its Lenexa, Kan., facility.
By moving from three
sites to one, the company
will consolidate its milling
of dry powder media used
in biopharmaceutical
manufacturing.
BRUKER has been awarded a $1.1 million contract
to supply a customized N8
Titanos atomic force microscope (AFM) to NIST’s
Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory, in Gaithersburg, Md. The AFM will
be used for surface measurements in semiconductor optics, photonics, and
biomedical areas.
SASOL plans to construct a $255 million
ethylene purification unit
at its polymers plant in
Sasolburg, South Africa.
The unit will boost ethylene production by 48,000
NOVOZYMES and
China’s Dacheng Group
will jointly develop biomass-based chemicals, in
particular glycols for use
in polyesters and plastics.
Novozymes, an enzymes
maker, notes that it also
has biobased chemical
agreements with Cargill
GE POWER & WATER
and ConocoPhillips have
opened their Global Water Sustainability Center
in the Qatar Science &
Technology Park. The
partners say researchers
will develop water treatment techniques primarily
AVECIA Biotechnology
will supply Pfizer with
a key component of
Macugen, a treatment for
wet age-related macular
degeneration that Pfizer
markets in Europe. Avecia
will provide technology
transfer, process valida-
tion, and commercial
supply of a component of
ANACOR Pharmaceuticals and Medicines for
Malaria Venture (MMV)
will work together to find
new treatments for malaria. With funding from
MMV, Anacor will apply its
boron chemistry platform
to quell the parasite.
