Business Roundup

Wacker Chemie and its joint-venture partner Metroark have started up a silicone compounds plant near Kolkata, India. The facility, with an annual capacity of several thousand metric tons, will produce compounds for the automotive, electronics, and high-voltage insulation markets.

Sumitomo Chemical will build a new facility in Japan to make high-purity alumina used in LED sapphire substrates. The new line will boost the company’s production capacity to 3,200 metric tons per year. Sumitomo recently formed a sapphire substrate venture with Samsung (C&EN, April 4, page 17).

Indorama Ventures has reached an agreement to buy a 50% stake in a dormant purified terephthalic acid plant in Cilegon, West Java, Indonesia, with annual capacity of 465,000 metric tons. The Polyprima Karyesreska plant will restart in 2012 and supply Indorama’s polyester plants in Indonesia.

DSM has agreed to acquire C5 Yeast Co. from fellow Dutch firm Cosun. DSM says it will combine C5’s technology with its own yeast and enzyme fermentation technologies for customers developing second-generation biofuels.

LIG Sciences has produced what it calls the world’s first commercially available lipid monomers and nanotubes based on diacetylene materials. The Export, Pa.-based firm says the nanotubes have uses in smart materials, drug delivery, biosensors, and other applications.

BASF Crop Protection and Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária, a Brazilian agricultural research institution, have signed a five-year agreement to jointly develop agricultural technologies for Brazilian growers. The partners’ first project focuses on using a bacterium for soil nitrogen fixation to enhance sugarcane growth.

Cambridge Major Laboratories has been picked by Summit to provide medicinal chemistry, solid-state studies, and manufacturing for Summit’s preclinical drug candidate SMT 19969. Summit is developing the small molecule for hospital infections caused by Clostridium difficile.

PoniardPharmaceuticalsandAllozynewill merge in a stock-for-stock deal. Former Allozyne shareholders will own about 65% of the firm, which will be called Allozyne, and Poniard’s will receive the rest.

Jubilant Life Sciences and Janssen Pharmaceutica have initiated a three-year neuroscience drug discovery partnership. Janssen will transfer its work on selected targets to Jubilant, which will in turn seek to develop preclinical candidates for Janssen. The Belgian company will fund Jubilant’s research work and may later pay milestones and royalties.