Business Roundup

OPX Biotechnologies has raised $36.5 million in a round of private equity financing, bringing its total funds raised to $60 million. The Boulder, Colo.-based firm says the cash will help it develop an industrial-scale process for making acrylic acid from renewable raw materials.

The European Commission has dropped fines of $33 million against Elementis and $98 million against Ciba, now part of BASF, for participating in a heat stabilizers price-fixing cartel that ended in 2000. The EC says an unrelated court case clarified rules showing that the statute of limitations had expired.

Wison (Nanjing) Clean Energy will use UOP’s methanol-to-olefins process in a 295,000-metric-ton-per-year plant slated to open in Nanjing, China, in 2013. UOP says the plant, which will make ethylene and propylene, will be the first commercial-scale installation of the technology.

Grace Construction Products has acquired De Neef Conchem, a privately owned group of companies that develop waterproofing products for the construction industry. De Neef Conchem has headquarters in Belgium and has 100 employees.

Eckert & Ziegler has acquired Bioscan’s radiopharmaceutical equipment business, which includes analytical instruments and automated radiopharmaceutical synthesis units. Eckert & Ziegler says the purchase will augment its business in providing components for radiation therapy and nuclear medicine.

Lanxess has inaugurated a butyl rubber R&D center at the research park of the University of Western Ontario. The center employs about 60 researchers and chemists who have already produced “biobutyl” rubber using isobutene derived from Gevo’s biomass-based isobutyl alcohol.

Royalty Pharma has agreed to pay Astellas Pharma $609 million for the patent estate and royalty stream to dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPP-IV) inhibitors being developed for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. The rights came to Astellas through its 2010 acquisition of OSI Pharmaceuticals.

Sorbent Therapeutics has closed a $53 million round of financing that included contributions from Novartis Venture Funds, Sofinnova Ventures, AgeChem, and others. Sorbent is developing CLP1001, a polymeric drug to help heart-failure patients by removing potassium, sodium, and fluid from the body.

Sanofi will collaborate with Rib-X Pharmaceuticals to research novel classes of antibiotics resulting from a Rib-X R&D program that uses rational drug design. Rib-X will receive $10 million up front, $9 million in research-based milestones, and potentially other milestone payments.