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Business

Business Roundup

November 17, 2008 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 86, Issue 46

Henkel will sell its 29% stake in Ecolab, the St. Paul, Minn.-based producer of institutional and industrial cleaning products. Sale of the stake, worth roughly $2.4 billion, will help Henkel pay for its acquisition of ICI's National Starch adhesives business at the beginning of this year.

BASF wants to sell its share of PEC-Rhin, a 50-50 fertilizers joint venture with French oil giant Total. BASF says PEC-Rhin's plant in Ottmarsheim, France, is not integrated with other facilities as are BASF's fertilizer plants at its big sites in Ludwigshafen, Germany, and in Antwerp, Belgium.

Evonik Industries has licensed the Ergo genomics platform from Integrated Genomics, a Chicago-based bioinformatics firm. Evonik says it will use the technology to develop new microbial strains for more cost-effective production of biological compounds.

BASF's venture capital arm has contributed $1.5 million to a $3.2 million first round of financing for NanoMas Technologies, a Binghamton, N.Y., firm developing inks containing silver nanoparticles. According to BASF, the conductive particles can be used in applications such as semiconductors and printed electronics.

Pfizer has put its Terre Haute, Ind., facility, previously used to make the failed inhaled insulin drug Exubera, up for sale. The company has owned the site for 60 years and has spent some $300 million since 1999 to upgrade it. Pfizer says the plant can be reconfigured to serve life sciences, technology, or food and beverage companies.

Linde will pursue a four-year cost-cutting program to save up to $1 billion at its production facilities. Although the industrial gas maker expects an economic downturn, it reaffirmed its 2008 full-year earnings forecast in its recent quarterly report to investors.

DSM Pharmaceuticals will manufacture Duska Therapeutics' ATPace at its Greenville, N.C., plant. ATPace is a liquid formula of adenosine 5??-triphosphate being investigated as a treatment for a common type of heart arrhythmia. Duska is designing a Phase III clinical trial of the drug.

Eli Lilly & Co. will work with consultants from Cabernet Pharmaceuticals to further integrate pharmacogenetics into selected drug development projects. By understanding the genetic basis of patient responses to medicines, Lilly hopes to tailor therapies for those patients most likely to benefit from treatment and experience the fewest side effects.

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