Business Roundup

Seatex has acquired fellow Texas contract chemical manufacturer ChemQuest Chemicals. The combined firm will serve specialty chemical customers including oil and gas, cleaning, agriculture, and water treatment firms.

Ashland will double the footprint and staffing of its bioresorbable polymer plant in Mullingar, Ireland. Various slow-release medications and dissolving medical devices use the lactide-​glycolide-caprolactone copolymers made at the site.

Balchem, which makes food ingredients and animal feed supplements, has acquired the methylsulfonylmethane (MSM) maker Bergstrom Nutrition. MSM is a food ingredient that supports joint and skin health and that can also be used in pet foods, Balchem says.

BASF has agreed to purchase pyrolysis oil from Arcus Greencycling Technology, which operates a plastics pyrolysis recycling demonstration plant in Frankfurt, Germany. BASF plans to use the oil as feedstock at its chemical complex in Ludwigshafen, Germany.

Lonza has formed a pact with Touchlight that allows it to offer Touchlight’s enzymatically made DNA to customers developing messenger RNA therapeutics and vaccines. The deal will add a covalently closed DNA vector to the traditional plasmid DNA that Lonza offers.

faCellitate, a BASF spin-off that develops polymeric coatings for plastics and glassware, has raised $3.7 million in its first financing round. The firm’s first product is a 96-well plate with an antiadhesive coating.

Ube will expand polycarbonate diol production in Thailand by 50%, to 12,000 metric tons per year. The firm says diol demand is growing for the production of high-end polyurethanes.

Roche will acquire Good Therapeutics for $250 million plus potential milestone payments, gaining Good’s PD-1-regulated interleukin-2 program. Good’s staffers will form a new firm, Bonum Therapeutics, to apply the firm’s technology elsewhere.