Business Roundup

Eastman Chemical will increase capacity for its Eastman 168 brand nonphthalate plasticizers. The project, to take place in Texas City, Texas, will raise capacity for the plasticizers by 15% when it is complete by mid-2014, the firm says.

Novozymes has acquired Allopartis Biotechnologies, a San Francisco-based start-up company that screens for new and optimized enzymes for industrial use. Novozymes, based in Denmark, is the world’s largest enzymes company.

Invista Engineering Polymers has opened a 22,000-ton-per-year compounding facility at its Chattanooga, Tenn., site. The facility will create additive-containing products for the firm’s Torzen line of nylon 6,6 polymers.

LanzaTech will work with South Korean energy and fuels firm SK Innovation to develop a process that converts waste gases to 1,3-butadiene using gas-fermenting microbes. The work will be carried out at SK’s research center in Daejeon, South Korea.

Sigma-Aldrich’s SAFC custom manufacturing business has upgraded its plant in Arklow, Ireland, to produce pharmaceutical-grade raw materials. Chemicals such as sodium benzoate, fumaric acid, and hex­ylene glycol have joined a line that now numbers close to 100 products, the firm says.

Affymetrix has sold its Anatrace division to private equity firm StoneCalibre. Anatrace is a maker of detergents and synthetic lipids used in membrane protein studies.

Aesica, a Newcastle, England-based contract manufacturing firm, is expanding its services and technology offerings for inhaled drug products. The company plans to create an inhalation technical center at its Nottingham, England, site by the end of 2014.

Sage Therapeutics, a developer of small-molecule drugs for central nervous system disorders, has raised $20 million in a second round of venture capital funding, bringing total funding to $57.8 million. The investors, Arch Venture Partners and Third Rock Ventures, were the firm’s original backers as well.