Business Roundup

Sinochem International is buying the Spanish acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene producer Elix Polymers for $225 million from the private equity firm Sun European Partners. Ineos once owned the business but sold it in 2012 as a regulatory condition for merging its styrenics business with BASF to form Styrolution.

Celanese has agreed to purchase Next Polymers, an engineering polymer compounder headquartered in Mumbai, India. Next Polymers makes compounds of nylon, polypropylene, polycarbonate, and acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene.

Solid Power, which is ­developing solid-state ­batteries with lithium metal anodes, has raised $20 million in series A funding. The firm, one of C&EN’s 10 Start-Ups to Watch last year, says it will use the funds to scale up output in Louisville, Colo.

Kyocera will spend $23 million to expand by 50% a plant in Kawasaki, Japan, that produces conductive and insulation pastes for the electronics industry and devices like motors and transformers. High growth in the auto industry justifies the expansion, Kyocera says.

Yissum, the technology transfer company of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has launched a fund to commercialize nanotechnology developed at the school. The fund has so far raised $6 million from strategic and institutional investors.

Roche will pay SQZ Biotech up to $125 million in up-front and near-term milestone fees as part of an expanded pact to develop cellular therapies for cancer. The companies have worked together since 2015 on products based on SQZ’s antigen-presenting cells.

Weill Cornell Medicine and GenExosome Technologies are partnering to develop methods to isolate exosomes from human cells for regenerative therapies. The duo will also study tissue-specific exosomes to develop liquid biopsies.

HiFiBiO Therapeutics, a biotech firm developing antibody therapies for autoimmune disorders and cancer, has acquired the French start-up H-Immune Therapeutics for an undisclosed amount. H-Immune is focused on antibodies for immuno-oncology targets.