Wacker To Expand Biotech And Polymers

Wacker Chemie will invest more than $22 million in its biopharmaceutical operations in Jena, Germany. The firm will double manufacturing space at the existing facility by the end of 2009, partly by adding a new purification station. By late 2008, it will also add a new process-development and quality-control building devoted to supporting its Escherichia coli-based protein secretion technology. Separately, Wacker is in "advanced discussions" on the purchase of Air Products & Chemicals' share in two polymer joint ventures. One venture, Air Products Polymers, makes vinyl acetate-ethylene emulsions, and the other, Wacker Polymer Systems, turns the emulsion into dispersible polymer powders. The ventures were formed in 1998.