Business Roundup

Carlyle Group and GIC have named Charles W. ­Shaver as the future CEO of AkzoNobel’s chemical business, which they are in the process of acquiring. Shaver is currently CEO of the paint maker Axalta. AkzoNobel tried to acquire Axalta last year.

AgBiome Innovations and the Italian agriculture products firm Sipcam Agro are joining to develop microbe-derived products. The companies will work on combination products that include AgBiome’s biobased fungicides.

BASF Petronas plans to expand capacity at its acrylic acid and butyl acrylate plants in Kuantan, Malaysia. The expansions are meant to meet demand for acrylic derivatives such as paints, adhesives, and superabsorbent polymers.

Umicore has licensed Buchwald precatalyst technology from MIT. Featuring electron-rich, tunable ligands, the precatalysts can enhance the effectiveness of Buchwald cross-coupling catalysts, Umicore says.

Sygnature Discovery will open a drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics facility in Cheshire, England, to operate in conjunction with its current site in Nottingham, England. The firm says the project will double its drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics services over 18 months.

Napa Therapeutics has been launched by three anti-aging-related start-ups: the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, Insilico Medicine, and Juvenescence. Napa will develop drugs related to metabolism of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, better known as NAD.

AbbVie has signed an exclusive license for Argenx’s ARGX-115, an antibody thought to help stimulate the immune system to attack cancer cells. Argenx could get up to $625 million in payments from AbbVie.

Bayer has invested an undisclosed sum in Austria’s Haplogen as part of a deal to develop antivirals for lung diseases. Haplogen launched in 2010 to develop substances that treat infection by the common-cold virus.