Business Roundup

Asahi Kasei will spend about $70 million to expand its lithium-ion battery separator plants in Shiga, Japan, and North Carolina. In Japan, it will increase its annual Hipore brand separators capacity by 90 million m² by 2020, and in North Carolina, it will boost its Celgard separator plant by 150 million m² later this year.

Mosaic has completed the purchase of Vale Fertilizantes. The purchase of the Brazilian fertilizer company gives Mosaic another 7,300 employees, doubling the size of its workforce.

Kemin Industries has agreed to acquire Garmon Chemicals, a Republic of San Marino-based maker of environmentally friendly textile chemicals. The acquisition opens a new business front for family-owned Kemin, which is a maker of food, feed, and health-related products.

Evonik Industries and China’s Fufeng Group have entered into a production agreement for l-threonine, used in animal feed. Fufeng will toll manufacture the amino acid for Evonik in a fermentation plant using Evonik technology.

Cleveland Potash, a subsidiary of Israel Chemicals, is set to cease potash mining in Boulby, England, by the end of June, which will cause the loss of about 230 jobs. The firm will continue to mine rock salt and polysulphate at the site.

Juvenescence, a company focused on therapeutics for aging, has raised $12.3 million in a seed round of funding. The company launched in March 2017 and subsequently signed a license to acquire five compound families from Insilico Medicine.

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and Sanofi are restructuring an RNA interference drugs alliance. Alnylam will get rights to RNAi compounds being developed for the treatment of transthyretin amyloidosis. Sanofi will get rights to fitusiran, an RNAi therapeutic in development for treating hemophilia A and B. The rest of their alliance, formed in 2014, remains the same.

Cypralis and Gilead Sciences have signed an agreement under which Cypralis will obtain exclusive rights to macrocyclic inhibitors of peptide bond isomerases targeting degenerative diseases. The deal follows a drug discovery collaboration between Selcia and Gilead on liver disease research in which Selcia’s rights were transferred to Cypralis.