Business Roundup

BASF has made an investment of undisclosed size in Climentum Capital’s $150 million venture capital fund, which is aimed at backing start-ups developing technologies to curb carbon dioxide emissions. Climentum plans to support 25 such firms across Europe.

Biosyntia, a Danish start-up that uses fermentation to make ingredients for food and beauty products, has raised $11.5 million to launch biobased biotin, also called vitamin B₇. Biosyntia says it will use the funds to start large-scale production and expand its pipeline.

Biosynth Carbosynth has acquired Pepscan, a Dutch specialist in peptide-based products and services. Pepscan will join Vivitide, a US peptide specialist that Biosynth acquired in March, to form a new peptide division.

Micropep Technologies, a French crop science company, has raised $8.8 million to start commercializing pesticides made with micropeptides, a family of proteins that plants produce naturally. The firm hopes the funding will help it introduce its first products to US farmers.

Symrise has formed a partnership with the industrial biotech firm Evoxx Technologies. The two companies will develop enzymatic and microbial routes to personal care chemicals.

Skyhawk Therapeutics will enter a collaboration with Sanofi to develop small molecules that modify RNA splicing, with the objective of treating cancer and immunological disease. Sanofi will pay $54 million to license drug candidates discovered in the pact.

MilliporeSigma has been named the preferred supplier to Lotte Chemical’s new US biologics business. The South Korean firm is acquiring Bristol Myers Squibb’s biologics facility in East Syracuse, New York, for $160 million.

Evotec, Boehringer Ingelheim, and bioMérieux will jointly invest $40 million to form Aurobac Therapeutics. The new French company will develop precision approaches to fight antimicrobial resistance.