Business Roundup

DSM has agreed to acquire Cargill’s cultures and enzymes business, which manufactures cultures and enzymes for the dairy and meat industries, for $110 million. The Cargill business has annual sales of about $60 million, a workforce of 200, and plants in the U.S. and France.

BASF and TenCate have formed an alliance to develop, produce, and commercialize thermoplastic composites for vehicle production. The firms are seeking to develop special variants of polyamide, polyester, and polyethersulfone compounds suited to high-volume production.

Dow Chemical plans to build a new world-scale facility for its Nordel IP brand ethylene propylene diene (EPDM) rubber on the U.S. Gulf Coast. To start up in 2016, the plant will take advantage of Dow’s ongoing investment in ethylene and propylene capacity, the company says.

Agilent Technologies and the newly opened Centre for Omic Sciences, in Reus, Spain, will collaborate on MS- and NMR-based metabolomics. The facility will also serve as a center of excellence where Agilent will demonstrate integrated biology workflows to customers.

Sumitomo Chemical, and Renaissance Energy Research have formed a joint venture to supply membrane-based carbon dioxide separation technology to hydrogen and natural gas producers. The Tokyo-based venture also plans to enter the carbon capture and storage business with permselective membranes developed by Renaissance.

Cobalt Technologies, a biobased chemicals start-up, reports that agribusiness giant Bunge has become an investor in a fourth round of funding. The two firms, along with Rhodia, have agreed to operate a pilot plant in Campinas, Brazil, to demonstrate the production of n-butanol from sugarcane bagasse.

Medical Research Council of the U.K. will provide academic researchers with $11 million in funding for 15 projects that involve finding new uses for AstraZeneca compounds. In December 2011, AstraZeneca made available 22 compounds to MRC scientists, who then submitted proposals for new therapeutic applications. MRC says it received more than 100 expressions of interest and 23 full funding proposals.

GE Capital will pay $23 million for a 7.69% stake in Syngene, the contract research arm of India’s Biocon. The investment will allow Syngene to expand its drug discovery and development services business and enable it to go public “at the most opportune time,” says Biocon Managing Director Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw.

Patheon will pay $255 million to acquire Banner Pharmacaps from Vion Food Group of the Netherlands. Banner’s softgel technology and four manufacturing sites will add to Patheon’s capabilities in providing drug formulation services.

Piramal Healthcare and Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies will join forces to offer contract development and manufacturing of antibody-drug conjugates. Piramal has conjugation capabilities, whereas Fujifilm recently expanded biopharmaceutical production facilities in the U.S. and U.K.