Business Roundup

The United Steelworkers union has ratified a contract that covers about 235 workers at Dow’s chemical plant in Deer Park, Texas. The workers were locked out for 7 weeks in the spring, the union says.

Trinseo will build a thermoplastic elastomer pilot plant in Hsinchu, Taiwan, by 2020. The plant will make thermoplastic urethanes for automotive, consumer electronic, medical, footwear, and other markets.

Covestro has launched an open-innovation network in China. The German polymer maker says the network will unite its Shanghai innovation center with universities, start-ups, and other companies in China.

Lenzing will spend more than $40 million to build a sulfuric acid plant at its cellulosic fiber facility in Lenzing, Austria. The project includes air purification and sulfur recovery facilities, the company says.

Agilent Technologies has opened an R&D center at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire, England, where it will study laser and Raman spectroscopy. Agilent entered the Raman field in 2017 with the purchase of Cobalt Light Systems.

Icosavax has raised $51 million in series A financing to develop and test a vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus in adults. The vaccine is based on self-assembling, viruslike particles developed at the University of Washington’s Institute for Protein Design.

Takeda Pharmaceutical has signed a pact with San Diego–based Prometheus Biosciences to develop up to three therapies for inflammatory bowel disease based on three different drug targets. Prometheus will receive an undisclosed up-front payment and up to $420 million in future milestone payments.

GlaxoSmithKline and Lyell Immunopharma will work together to try to extend the benefits of engineered cell therapies, which work well in blood cancers, to solid tumors. Lyell is focused on ways to make engineered T cells, which can wear out in the environment surrounding a tumor, longer acting.