Business Roundup

LyondellBasell has broken ground on the largest propylene oxide and tert-butyl alcohol (TBA) plant in the world in Channelview, Texas. The $2.4 billion plant will have an annual capacity of 470,000 metric tons of propylene oxide and 1 million metric tons of TBA when it is completed in 2021.

Ceres Power, a U.K.-based developer of solid oxide fuel-cell technology, and engineering firm Bosch Group will collaborate on product development and begin low-volume production of fuel cells. Bosch will take a 4.4% stake, worth $11.7 million, in Ceres, and will pay licensing fees and royalties.

The European Commission has approved the Carlyle Group’s $12.5 billion acquisition of AkzoNobel’s specialty chemicals business. The EC said that there are no major overlaps between the chemical business and the private equity firm that ought to raise concerns about competition.

DuPont Nutrition & Health is expanding its R&D team by six positions at its Brabrand facility in Denmark. The new employees will work in a “clean-label hub” where they will develop ingredients and processes for the company’s pipeline of healthy nutrition and texturant products.

Bruker has signed a definitive agreement to buy an 80% stake in Hain Lifescience, a Germany-based maker of molecular diagnostic instruments and consumables used to detect infectious diseases. Hain expects 2018 revenue of about $38 million.

Recombinetics, a company that is creating gene-edited pigs, finished raising its $34 million series A financing round. Recombinetics is editing pigs for agriculture, for research on human diseases, and even to grow human cells and organs inside the pigs for transplantation into humans.

ViroMed, a Korean biopharmaceutical firm, has acquired a plasmid DNA production facility in San Diego from Vical. The Seoul-based firm says Phase III clinical trials of its lead product, VM202 (donaperminogene seltoplasmid), to treat painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy are nearing completion.

Vertex and Genomics have agreed to collaborate on improving drug discovery targets in precision medicine using genomics techniques and machine learning, a method of computing where by systems are informed by processing data over a period of time. The three-year partnership can be extended to five years under the contract.