Business Roundup

Sirrus will work with BASF to develop automotive coatings based on its methylene malonate technology. Sirrus says its malonate monomers polymerize rapidly at ambient temperature, unlike those in incumbent auto coating systems.

Pilot Chemical plans to spend $5 million on an innovation center in Pittsburgh. The lab will be on the site of the former ATRP Solutions, a controlled radical polymerization firm that Pilot acquired last year.

Synthomer, Nexeon, and University College London have been awarded about $10 million in Innovate UK funding to develop polymer binders that work with silicon. The goal is to replace carbon with silicon in lithium-ion battery anodes.

Agilent Technologies has acquired Luxcel Biosciences, an Irish developer of fluorescence-based assay kits for in vitro cell analysis. Agilent says Luxcel complements its existing cell analysis instruments and the live-cell assays it acquired with Seahorse Bioscience in 2015.

Solaria has raised $23 million to expand production of its PowerXT solar modules. The firm says it uses semiconductor industry technology to reassemble silicon solar cells into customized shapes.

Charles River Laboratories has acquired KWS BioTest, a British contract research organization specializing in drug discovery testing services, for $20 million. CRL says the purchase expands its geographic footprint and adds to its early-stage drug research services.

Eurofins has acquired Craft Technologies, a Wilson, N.C.-based lab specializing in analysis of nutrients, vitamins, carotenoids, and phytochemicals in blood. Craft recently received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to advance methods of collecting finger-stick blood spot samples.

Adapsyn Bioscience will collaborate with Pfizer to discover microbe-derived natural products in a deal worth up to $162 million in milestones. Adapsyn uses bioinformatics and machine learning to mine microbe genomes for drug candidates.