Business Roundup

Altivia, a privately held chemical company, has acquired KMCO’s Crosby, Texas, ethoxylation facility out of bankruptcy proceedings. KMCO had a fire and explosion last year that killed one worker.

Syngenta is an investor in a $7 million round of seed funding for Greeneye Technology, an Israeli start-up developing an artificial intelligence platform that detects weeds in real time to spray them individually. When ­installed on commercial sprayers, the system can reduce herbicide use by more than 65%, according to Greeneye.

H.I.G. Capital has invested in USALCO, a Baltimore-based maker of aluminum chemicals used in water treatment and refinery catalysts. H.I.G., a private equity firm, says it now has 10 chemical investments.

Covestro is starting a cooperation to use renewable raw materials from Neste in polycarbonates. Separately, the firm is introducing a polycarbonate film in which more than 50% of its carbon content comes from plant-based oils supplied by another firm.

Sensient Technologies has agreed to sell its digital ink business, which makes ink-jet printing inks, to Sun Chemical for an undisclosed amount. The deal is set to close later this quarter.

Aduro Biotech is merging with Chinook Therapeutics. Chinook suggests that it will put less emphasis on Aduro’s program to develop a small-molecule STING (stimulator of interferon genes) agonist for cancer immunotherapy and instead focus on Aduro’s antibody that targets APRIL, a protein implicated in a kidney disease.

Corning has signed an agreement to supply its Valor glass vials to Pfizer for sterile drug packaging. Introduced in 2017, Valor glass uses aluminum instead of boron to increase strength and reduce breakage.

TAE Life Sciences has raised $30 million in series B funding to develop a radiation therapy for cancer based on boron-10 and the firm’s ­neutron beam accelerator. The funding will help TAE design boron-based conjugates for selective delivery of the radiotherapy into tumors.