Business Roundup

Sony, the Japanese electronics giant, is selling its chemical products business to the Development Bank of Japan for about $730 million. The Sony business makes adhesive and optical materials, magnetic devices, and conductive film.

AkzoNobel is licensing its continuous initiator dosing technology to Mexichem, which will use the technology at polyvinyl chloride plants in Mexico and Colombia. The license is Akzo’s first outside Europe, where it already has five licensees.

Elementis has agreed to purchase Watercryl Quimica, a Brazilian coatings additives company, for $24 million. Established in 1993, Watercryl is based in Palmital, São Paulo, and had sales of $9.3 million for the 12 months ending on May 31.

DuPont has sued the German specialty materials maker Heraeus and its customer SolarWorld Industries America for infringing a patent on metallization pastes used to make solar cells. In September 2011, DuPont filed a similar suit against Heraeus regarding another metallization paste patent.

Firmenich and Makhteshim Agan Group have formed a joint venture to make aroma chemicals at a new facility in Ramat Hovav, Israel. Makhteshim says the facility will use a “unique” chemical process, which was developed at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

Sun Chemical, the U.S. subsidiary of Japan’s DIC Group, has reached a definitive agreement to purchase Benda-Lutz Werke, an Austria-based maker of metallic-effect pigments. The deal will add production facilities in Austria, Poland, Russia, and the U.S. to Sun’s existing aluminum pigment site in China.

Gevo is collaborating with ethanol producer BioFuel Energy to evaluate producing isobutyl alcohol at one of BioFuel’s plants using Gevo’s fermentation technology. Gevo started up its own isobutyl alcohol plant in Luverne, Minn., earlier this year.

The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, a partly state-owned agency that supports life sciences research, has joined with seven biopharmaceutical companies to form the Massachusetts Neuroscience Consortium. Partners include Abbott Laboratories, Biogen Idec, Pfizer, Merck & Co., and Janssen Research & Development. The group, with total funds of $1.75 million, will support preclinical neuroscience at Massachusetts academic and research institutions.

Life Technologies and Boston Children’s Hospital have formed an R&D collaboration focused on end-to-end genetic sequencing using Life Technologies’ Ion Proton sequencer. The partners have planned an advanced sequencing facility to be built at the hospital.