Business Roundup

Mitsubishi Chemical has offered to acquire Tessenderlo’s polymer compounds business, which makes thermoplastic elastomers and compounded polyvinyl chloride. The business has sites in France, Poland, Belgium, and China and generated close to $160 million in sales in 2011.

ICL Performance Products has agreed to acquire Thermphos International’s phosphorus pentasulfide business in Knapsack, Germany. P₂S₂ is used to manufacture lube oil additives, pesticides, and mining chemicals. Thermphos, a Dutch firm, ran into financial difficulties last fall and was forced into liquidation.

BASF plans to open a battery materials R&D lab and application technology center in Amagasaki, Japan. To be fully operational by the end of 2013, the facilities will research electrolytes and electrode materials and tailor products for the Japanese battery industry, BASF says.

SK Global Chemical and Sinopec have formalized an earlier proposal to build a butanediol plant in China. With a capacity of 200,000 metric tons per year, the project is expected to cost $610 million and come on-line in late 2015.

Mitsui Chemicals has agreed to acquire a 51% stake in KOC Solution, a South Korean producer of monomers for making plastic optical lenses. In April 2011, the Japanese firm bought Acomon, a Swiss producer of lens monomers.

Celgard, a subsidiary of Polypore International, has filed suit against Sumitomo Chemical for patent infringement. The disputed patent describes a separator for a high-energy rechargeable lithium-ion battery made with a ceramic composite layer.

Abbott Laboratories will work with Janssen Biotech and Pharmacyclics on a diagnostic test using Abbott’s fluorescence in situ hybridization technology to identify patients with a genetic subtype of chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Janssen and Pharmacyclics are developing a drug, ibrutinib, to treat the disease.

California Lithium Battery, a Los Angeles-based start-up, has licensed a silicon-graphene composite anode material used in high-energy lithium batteries from Argonne National Laboratory. CalBattery plans to scale up the anode material to commercial production.

Cubist Pharmaceuticals and analgesics specialist Adynxx have entered an agreement under which Cubist will have the exclusive right to acquire Adynxx after the Phase II clinical trial for its lead product candidate, AYX1, a therapy to reduce pain after surgery.