Business Roundup

FMC Corp. has closed its butyllithium plant in Bayport, Texas, and consolidated North American production in Bessemer City, N.C. At the same time, the company has opened a butyllithium plant in Zhangjiang, China. It also runs plants in Hyderabad, India, and Bromborough, England.

Dover Chemical has launched production of polyisobutylene succinic anhydride at its Hammond, Ind., facility. The company says the intermediate adds functionality—particularly dispersion—to hydrocarbons in a wide range of applications.

Bayer Technology Services has developed a new process for purifying acetonitrile, a liquid chromatography solvent that is in short supply. Bayer says its pilot plant in Leverkusen, Germany, can upgrade technical-grade material in lots of 250 to 1,000 L for between $14 and $27 per liter.

Bayer CropScience has formed an alliance with Australia's Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organization to develop new wheat varieties with higher yields and drought tolerance. Bayer says the pact expands its seed research beyond cotton, canola, rice, and vegetables.

PharmAgra Labs has opened manufacturing facilities at its Brevard, N.C., site that operate under FDA's current Good Manufacturing Practice standards. The privately held firm also passed an FDA inspection related to production of a low-volume active pharmaceutical ingredient.

Novartis has elected to extend its RNA interference therapeutics collaboration with Alnylam Pharmaceuticals for a fifth and final year. Under the agreement, both companies are responsible for RNAi discovery research. Novartis is responsible for development and commercialization of therapeutic products.

Dicerna Pharmaceuticals has partnered with Archemix to enable the delivery of its gene-silencing drugs. Archemix' aptamers—nucleic acid macromolecules that bind to a specific target in the cell—will be used to deliver Dicerna's dicer substrate RNA, which engages an enzyme involved earlier in the gene-silencing pathway than other RNAi approaches.

OSI Pharmaceuticals has expanded its two-year-old oncology therapy and biomarker discovery alliance with Aveo Pharmaceuticals. On top of funding research for another two years, OSI will pay $5 million in cash and purchase $15 million in equity in Aveo in exchange for additional targets and technology.