Business Roundup

Saudi Aramco has completed its purchase of a 70% stake in Sabic for $69 billion. Aramco says the transaction enhances its presence in the petrochemical industry, which it expects will be the fastest growing consumer of oil in the years ahead.

MycoTechnology has raised $39 million in series D funding from food and investment firms, bringing its total funding to $120 million. The Denver-based company makes mushroom-derived ingredients that help food companies reduce sugar, salt, and fat.

Tosoh Silicaand Namhae Chemical plan to build a silica plant in South Korea to serve the tire industry. Silica is increasingly being added to tires to make them more fuel efficient by reducing rolling resistance. Tosoh already produces the silica in Japan. Namhae is a South Korean fertilizer maker.

Renibus Therapeutics has selected Oregon-based Cascade Chemistry to produce the active pharmaceutical ingredient for clinical trials of RBT-9, a COVID-19 therapy. RBT-9 has demonstrated both antiviral and immune-modulating activities in preclinical studies, Renibus says.

Shanghai ChemPartner has opened a biologics production facility in Qidong, China, near Shanghai. The pharmaceutical services firm says the 67,000 m² campus includes a laboratory center with a 5,000 m² animal facility.

HitGen will deploy its DNA-encoded library technology in a drug-discovery pact with Evotec. The firms say they hope to find small molecules that bind to undisclosed anti-infective targets.

Ona Therapeutics, a spin-off from Spain’s Institute for Research in Biomedicine, has raised about $34 million in series A financing. Based on the work of its founders, Ona plans to develop drugs that prevent cancer metastasis by blocking fat metabolism in cancer cells.

eTheRNA Immunotherapies has raised about $38 million in series B financing to develop messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines for cancer and infectious diseases. The Belgian start-up takes a unique approach, encoding immune-stimulating proteins in mRNA in addition to an antigen, such as the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.