Business Roundup

Sumitomo Chemical will take full ownership of New Chemi Industries, an Indian agrochemical producer with which Sumitomo set up a manufacturing joint venture in 2000. New Chemi recorded sales of $16 million in 2009. Separately, Sumitomo has contracted the manufacturing of six products to generic agrochemical producer Nufarm. Sumitomo acquired a 20% stake in the Australian firm last April.

Dow Chemical plans to build a 150,000-metric-ton-per-year propylene glycol plant in Map Ta Phut, Thailand, as part of an integrated ethylene cracker and derivatives project with Siam Cement. The new unit will piggyback on a hydrogen peroxide-to-propylene oxide plant that Dow is building there.

Styron, the former styrenics and polycarbonate business of Dow Chemical, plans to expand capacity for solution styrene butadiene rubber in Schkopau, Germany, by 50,000 metric tons per year. The company says the additional capacity for the rubber, used in fuel-efficient tires, will open by the end of 2012.

Rockwood Specialties is selling its AlphaGary plastics compounding unit to Mexichem, a diversified Mexican chemical producer, for $300 million. Last year, Mexichem purchased Ineos’ fluorochemicals unit.

Rhodia will acquire PI Polymer, the engineering plastics business of India’s PI Industries. Rhodia says the acquisition will help boost its Indian polyamide market share. PI Polymer is expected to record sales of $13 million in the fiscal year ending on March 31.

W.R. Grace has purchased the assets of RS Solutions for an undisclosed sum. RS makes process control products for the ready-mix concrete industry, including electromechanical devices and sensors that help control product quality and production costs.

BASF Plant Science and Bayer CropScience will collaborate to improve rice productivity. By 2020, the two German giants hope to have launched hybrid rice seeds that offer yield advances of 10% or more over conventional hybrid seeds.

Bristol-Myers Squibb has acquired worldwide rights to develop and commercialize Oncolys BioPharma’s festinavir, a once-daily, orally available nucle­­oside reverse transcriptase inhibitor in Phase II development to treat HIV. Oncolys, based in Japan, could get up to $286 million in milestone payments.

Abbott Laboratories and EpiTherapeutics will develop anticancer drugs by making small-molecule inhibitors of selected oncology targets. Denmark-based EpiTherapeutics will receive an unspecified up-front payment and research funding under a three-year contract.