Business Roundup

W.R. Grace has sold off a line of polymer-based membranes used in natural gas separation for about $22 million and a line of fire-stopping products used by the construction industry for $5 million. Neither buyer was disclosed.

Synalloy has reached an agreement to sell its Blackman Uhler Specialties chemical business in Spartanburg, S.C., to SantoLubes for $11.2 million. Divesting Blackman, which has annual sales of $14.5 million, will allow Synalloy to expand its metal pipe business.

Novolyte Technologies, an electrolyte solution maker, will partner with Taiwan-based Aleees to speed the commercial development of lithium iron phosphate olivine cathode materials. The two companies aim to jointly produce low-cost, high-energy lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and consumer and industrial applications.

Osmose has purchased Phibro Animal Health’s micronized copper and alkaline copper quaternary compound wood preservative businesses for $37.5 million. Osmose says the buy will give it additional manufacturing capacity to meet demand for micronized wood preservatives and allow it to consolidate intellectual property in wood treatment.

The European Commission raided several pharmaceutical companies on Oct. 6 as part of its ongoing investigation into anticompetitive practices in the drug industry. The commission has been critical of deals that keep generic drugs off the market.

Bicycle Therapeutics, newly spun off by the U.K.’s Medical Research Council, has found seed funding from Atlas Ventures and the Novartis Venture Fund. The drug discovery firm aims to identify chemically constrained cyclic peptides with high target specificity and binding affinities that are also stable to unfolding and to proteases.

GlaxoSmithKline and Jiangsu Walvax Biotech Co. have agreed to form a pediatric vaccine joint venture in China. GSK will provide technology that the venture will use to build a new manufacturing facility. The companies plan on investing a total of $65 million, with about two-thirds coming from GSK.

Adimab has closed a funding round led by new investor Google Ventures and including four previous Adimab venture capital investors. The Lebanon, N.H.-based firm uses a yeast-based discovery and optimization platform to create therapeutic antibodies (C&EN, July 27, page 34).