Business Roundup

Indorama will acquire Glanzstoff Group, a Luxembourg-based producer of tire cord materials made from rayon, aramid, nylon 6,6, and polyester. Indorama, the world’s largest producer of polyethylene terephthalate, entered the tire cord market in 2014.

Momentive Performance Materials has opened a $3.5 million, 1,900-m² research center in Charlotte, N.C. There the company will test ingredients for tires, including its NXT silane products for low-rolling-resistance tires.

Merck KGaA is leading a European project to develop materials and device architectures for high-performance, hyperfluorescent organic light-emitting diodes for displays and solid-state lighting. The project will receive $4.3 million from the European Union.

Ametek will acquire Mocon, a maker of lab and field gas analysis instruments, for $182 million. Mocon, which had 2016 sales of $63 million, will expand Ametek’s gas instrumentation business into the food and pharmaceutical package testing markets.

WeylChem, a custom manufacturer of chemical intermediates, will spend more than $13 million this year to expand and upgrade its facility in Elgin, S.C. The investment is being spurred by a new, long-term toll manufacturing project, WeylChem says.

Pfizer will work with China’s HitGen to build and screen DNA-encoded small-molecule libraries for use in drug discovery. Pfizer says it will apply its parallel medicinal chemistry expertise to develop the libraries.

Cobra Biologics will spend $19 million to expand manufacturing capacity for gene therapy and immunotherapy products in the U.K. and Sweden. The firm expects the investment will create up to 50 jobs, raising its workforce to 135.

Lyndra, a drug delivery technology start-up founded by Robert Langer, has raised $23 million in a series A funding round. The company is developing ultra-long-acting, sustained-release oral-dosage forms of small-molecule and peptide drugs as a means of improving therapeutic efficacy and reducing side effects.