Business Roundup

Thermo Fisher Scientific says it will make $50 million in new investments because of the benefits it is receiving under recently enacted U.S. tax reform legislation. The investments include $34 million for a one-time, $500 bonus to 68,000 nonexecutive employees worldwide and $16 million for R&D, sustainability, and philanthropic activities.

BASF has granted a sublicense to Hunan Reshine New Material to make nickel-cobalt-manganese lithium-ion battery cathode materials. BASF licensed the original patents from Argonne National Laboratory.

International Flavors & Fragrances has broken ground on a new flavors and fragrances plant in Sri City, India. The 130,000-m² site will be the largest IFF facility in Asia.

Nippon Shokubai will increase capacity in Japan for 2-(2-vinyloxy ethoxy) ethyl acrylate, oxazoline functional monomer, and polyethyleneimine water-soluble polymer. The company did not specify the size of the expansions.

Novartis has out-licensed its FGFR inhibitor infigratinib to BridgeBio Pharma, which subsequently launched a subsidiary, QED Therapeutics, to develop the molecule. In order to support clinical studies of infigratinib, BridgeBio has put $65 million into QED. Infigratinib is currently in Phase II studies for people with a rare type of bile duct cancer driven by FGFR2 fusions.

Univercells, a Belgian biotech start-up, has been awarded a $3 million grant by the Walloon region of Belgium to develop a protein technology for the low-cost production of biosimilar drugs. The company had already raised $3.6 million from venture capitalists in December, which it will use to accelerate the commercialization of its technology.

Cambrex will add 185 m² of small-molecule pharmaceutical chemical development lab space at its facility in Charles City, Iowa. The company says the project, to be completed later this quarter, will support the hiring of 14 chemists.

Casi Pharmaceuticals struck a deal to acquire 29 generic drugs from Sandoz, the generics and biosimilars division of Novartis. Casi says the portfolio will expand its sales in U.S. and Chinese markets.