Business Roundup

DSM will build a plant that makes urethane dispersion resins for waterborne coatings at its site in Meppen, Germany. The plant will cost roughly $25 million and open in mid-2007, the company says.

Elbion, formed in a management buyout from Degussa in 2002, is merging with the Belgian firm 4AZA Bioscience NV. The combined company will be called Elbion and will be headquartered at 4AZA's headquarters in Leuven. It will focus on drugs for CNS and immunological diseases.

The Department of Defense's Defense Threat Reduction Agency has granted AVI BioPharma a two-year, $28 million research contract for the development of antisense therapeutics against Ebola, Marburg, and Junin viruses.

Ranbaxy Laboratories of India has agreed to buy South Africa's Be-Tabs Pharmaceuticals for $70 million. With annual sales of about $30 million, Be-Tabs is South Africa's fifth-largest generic drug supplier.

PerkinElmer has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Evotec's technologies unit, a maker of high-throughput cell-screening systems and software, for $31 million. Evotech says the transaction will allow it to focus on drug discovery and development.

BASF will supply its nitrous oxide reduction technology to an adipic acid plant owned by PetroChina in Liaoyang, China. The greenhouse gas N₂O is a by-product of the manufacture of adipic acid and nitric acid.

Apollo Management has completed its $3.8 billion purchase of General Electric's silicone and quartz business. The new name for the business is Momentive Performance Materials.

Eastman Chemical says TX Energy has received a federal tax credit of $130 million for a proposed industrial gasification project the two firms are developing. When completed, the facility will supply raw material to Eastman's Longview, Texas, site (C&EN, Nov. 27, page 19).

Lucite International will stop making specialty monomers in Teesside, England, in the fourth quarter of 2007, resulting in the loss of about 35 jobs. The company cites rising raw material costs and decreasing domestic demand for the products.