Business Roundup

Borealis will acquire DEXPlastomers, a Dutch joint venture between DSM and ExxonMobil Chemical that makes octene-containing plastomers and linear low-density polyethylene. The parties expect DEX to have sales this year of about $230 million.

Mitsui & Co.’s Prime Polymer subsidiary will build a linear low-density polyethylene plant in Singapore. To cost about $115 million, the plant will have 300,000 metric tons per year of capacity and open by the end of 2014, Mitsui says.

BASF will build an acrylic emulsion polymers plant in Freeport, Texas, that will be integrated into the company’s acrylic acid production at the site. BASF says the plant will create about 25 new jobs when it opens in mid-2014.

PerkinElmer has acquired Shanghai Haoyuan Biotech, a China-based infectious disease diagnostics company, for $38 million plus potential milestone payments. PerkinElmer says the purchase extends its capabilities into nucleic acid blood screening and in the growing Chinese clinical diagnostics market.

Sanofi has named Gary J. Nabel as chief scientific officer, effective Dec. 3. Nabel joins Sanofi from the National Institutes of Health, where he served as director of the Vaccine Research Center. He will report to Elias Zerhouni, head of global R&D at Sanofi and a former NIH director.

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries of India will spend about $230 million to acquire the U.S. firm DUSA Pharmaceuticals. DUSA produces and sells FDA-approved medicated skin creams, Sun says. DUSA operates a manufacturing unit in Wilmington, Mass.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals will expand its biopharmaceutical manufacturing plant in East Greenbush, N.Y., by adding capacity to make products for clinical trials and potential commercial sale. The company says the project will create 300 jobs.

GlaxoSmithKline and France’s Imagine Institute will work together to find treatments for Netherton syndrome, a rare, inherited skin disease. GSK will provide Imagine, a translational research center recently established within Paris’ Necker Children’s Hospital, with an undisclosed up-front payment and milestones.