Business Roundup

DSM has picked the Chinese firm Nanjing Cosmos Chemical to produce two new skin care active ingredients. Cosmos’s plant in Maanshan, China, will make DSM’s ultraviolet filters Parsol Max and Parsol Shield, both used in the formulation of skin care creams and sunscreens.

Teijin will expand capacity for its Twaron p-aramid fiber at its plant in Emmen, the Netherlands. To be completed early in 2019, the project will involve new, more automated spinning technology, Teijin says.

Evonik Industries has launched a crowdsourcing competition for students aimed at finding new materials for the personal care market. Last year, the German firm held a similar contest seeking friction-reduction techniques for its lubricant additives business.

BASF will join with Israeli genetics firm Kaiima Bio-Agritech in an effort to discover herbicide resistance traits for crops. The project will use Kaiima’s non-GMO breeding tool, which relies on a plant’s own DNA to induce genomic modifications such as gene duplication and translocation.

Alcami will relocate its headquarters from Wilmington to Durham, both in North Carolina. The drug custom development and manufacturing firm says the move will allow it to access clients and talent in Research Triangle Park.

Shire has acquired worldwide rights to a Novimmune bispecific antibody in preclinical development for the treatment of hemophilia A. Shire says the compound is the sort it expects to develop in a rare-disease research center that’s set to open in Cambridge, Mass., in 2019.

Amgen and Array BioPharma are joining to develop small molecules for autoimmune disorders discovered through Array’s chemistry and early lead-development platforms. Array will provide medicinal chemistry; Amgen is responsible for clinical development and commercialization.

PeptiDream and Kleo Pharmaceuticals will jointly develop small-molecule immuno-oncology therapies. Tokyo-based PeptiDream will use its discovery platform to identify macrocyclic/constrained peptides against oncology targets selected by Kleo.