Business Roundup

Huntsman Corp.'s case against Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank is set to begin this week. Huntsman is seeking more than $4 billion in damages. It claims the banks interfered with its proposed 2007 merger with Access Industries and failed to provide promised funding in its subsequent merger attempt with Hexion Specialty Chemicals.

Ortho Biotech Oncology Research & Development, part of Johnson & Johnson, has entered a five-year cooperative R&D agreement with the National Cancer Institute. The collaborators will develop and test cell therapy technologies against a variety of cancers. These immunotherapies are designed to help the immune system destroy cancer cells while sparing healthy tissue.

CSL, the Melbourne, Australia-based developer of vaccines and plasma protein biotherapies, and Talecris, the Research Triangle Park, N.C.-based biotech drug discovery and development firm, have terminated a 2008 merger deal in which CSL agreed to acquire Talecris for $3.1 billion. The Federal Trade Commission blocked the transaction.

Huntsman Corp. plans to build a fertilizer plant at its Calais, France, titanium dioxide manufacturing site. The firm says it will use all of the spent acid from the pigment plant to make fertilizer, enabling it to shut down the effluent treatment unit.

Sigma-Aldrich has launched a network to provide lab services—such as cloning and protein characterization, expression, and purification—for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Using a centralized website, the services network provides menu-based access to resources from the company and its certified partners.