Business Roundup

Solvay will supply Akzo­Nobel with biobased epichlorohydrin for paints and coatings. The three-year agreement expands a deal reached in March in which Solvay agreed to supply AkzoNobel with biobutanol and bioacetone for paint.

Kuraray will spend $35 million to expand production capacity for polyvinyl alcohol film at its U.S. subsidiary, MonoSol. Kuraray acquired the company, a producer of PVOH films used to package detergents, agrochemicals, and dyes, in June 2012.

BASF has acquired start-up firm Deutsche Nanoschicht. The small firm has developed an economical process to produce high-temperature superconducting thin films via chemical solution deposition. The venture will boost BASF’s nascent power management business.

Bruker has signed an exclusive agreement to license 3M patents for matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry imaging. The patents pertain to a technique for the analysis of proteins in tissues preserved in paraffin.

Clariant says it has expanded its Sunliquid cellulosic ethanol technology to take advantage of corn stover and sugarcane bagasse as biomass raw materials. The technology is currently used to convert wheat straw at a demonstration plant in Germany; Clariant now hopes to license the technology in North America, Latin America, and Asia.

LG Chem will supply lithium-ion batteries for Southern California Edison’s Antelope-Bailey wind power facility near Bakersfield, Calif. South Korea-based LG says the 32-MWh Tehachapi Wind Energy Storage Project will be the largest battery energy storage system in North America, equivalent to 2,000 Chevrolet Volt batteries, which LG also manufactures.

Protagonist Therapeutics has raised $14 million from a group of investors that includes Johnson & Johnson and Lilly Ventures. The biotechnology firm will use the funding to advance discovery and development of disulfide-rich peptides as oral therapeutics.

GlaxoSmithKline has licensed an anti-inflammatory antibody from the German biotech company MorphoSys. GSK will pay about $30 million up front for rights to the drug and up to $580 million in success-based milestone payments. The drug, known as MOR103, has concluded Phase I/II trials in patients with mild to moderate rheumatoid arthritis.

Array BioPharma and Oncothyreon will join to develop Array’s ARRY-380, a small-molecule inhibitor of HER2, a kinase that is overexpressed in several cancers. Oncothyreon, a cancer drug developer, will pay Array an up-front fee of $10 million and fund clinical development.