Business Roundup

LyondellBasell Industries and Covestro are building a plant that will generate energy—in the form of steam—from waste at their jointly operated propylene oxide and styrene facility in Maasvlakte, the Netherlands. Dubbed the Circular Steam Project, the plant is due to open in 2020.

Orion Engineered Carbons has tapped former Air Products & Chemicals executive Corning F. Painter, 55, as its new CEO. He will replace the retiring Jack L. Clem, 65, who has run the carbon black producer since 2011.

BASF plans to increase capacity for 1,6-hexanediol at its plant in Ludwigshafen, Germany, by more than 50% by 2021. The firm says its global capacity for the versatile additive will then be more than 70,000 metric tons per year.

Asahi Glass will expand its Indonesian polyvinyl chloride capacity by 200,000 metric tons per year. In Japan, Asahi Glass will build new facilities to produce fluorinated resins used to manufacture circuit boards for 5G smartphones.

Givaudan will work with the Indian firm Synthite to develop natural fragrance ingredients with floral and spicy notes. Synthite calls itself a leader in spice extracts and other plant-derived ingredients.

Optibrium and Enamine have signed a deal under which users of Optibrium’s StarDrop synthesis optimization software will have access to a database of Enamine’s compounds. Enamine offers 3.3 million drug-screening compounds and over 7 million chemical building blocks.

Boehringer Ingelheim and Tsinghua University are joining forces to form a Joint Research Center for Immuno-Infection. The initiative will take the concept of cancer immunotherapy, which activates the immune system’s ability to broadly fight tumors, and apply it to infectious diseases.

Azeria Therapeutics has raised $5 million in its first formal round of financing. The firm was spun out of the labs of Cancer Research UK’s Jason Carroll, an expert in a class of cancer drug targets called pioneer factors. Azeria will initially pursue small molecules that target FOXA1, a pioneer factor implicated in breast and prostate cancer.