Business Roundup

Dynea has sold a formaldehyde resins plant in Delfzijl, the Netherlands, to ChemCom Investments, a company created by former and current members of the facility’s management team. The facility, which employs 35 people, can produce 70,000 metric tons of formaldehyde and 130,000 metric tons of formaldehyde-based resins annually.

Mossi & Ghisolfi has purchased land in Corpus Christi, Texas, where it will build a 2.2 billion-lb-per-year polyethylene terephthalate plant and a purified terephthalic acid plant. The company says the purchase will allow it to conduct engineering and file permits.

Praxair has signed a 15-year agreement under which it will purchase carbon dioxide generated by Honeywell’s caprolactam facility in Hopewell, Va. The by-product gas will be purified and liquefied at a new Praxair plant for sale in food-freezing and beverage applications.

RPM International, the maker of hardware store staples such as Rust-Oleum, has acquired the nail enamel company Kirker Enterprises of Pat­erson, N.J., for an undisclosed sum. Kirker has annual sales of more than $100 million.

Inolex has launched a line of emollients for personal care products using biobased succinic acid from BioAmber. The two firms say the LexFeel N fluids have a clean, nongreasy, silky feel and are natural alternatives to silicone fluids used in skin, hair care, and antiperspirant products.

Agrivida, a plant biotechnology start-up, has raised $15 million in a third round of venture funding led by Bright Capital Partners. The firm recently formed a collaboration with ethanol producer Poet to test crops genetically engineered for making cellulosic ethanol.

Chemical Abstracts Service has signed an agreement with the National Institutes of Health Library giving NIH scientists access to its SciFinder chemistry database. CAS is a division of the American Chemical Society, which publishes C&EN.

Vascular Pharmaceuticals has raised $16 million in its first round of institutional funding. Separately, the company has signed an agreement permitting Janssen Biotech to acquire it after it completes a Phase II study of VPI-2690B, a monoclonal antibody now in preclinical development as a diabetes treatment.

Takeda Pharmaceutical has completed construction of a drug manufacturing facility in Yaroslavl, Russia. The Japanese firm has invested about $97 million in the plant, which is scheduled to start up by 2014. Takeda says it ranks seventh in drug sales in Russia.