Business Roundup

Huntsman has agreed to sell 42.5 million shares in its former titanium dioxide business, Venator, for $100 million to the private equity firm SK Capital Partners. The shares represent 40% of Venator’s outstanding shares. SK has an option to buy an additional 9.5 million shares within 30 months.

Air Liquide will spend more than $160 million to build air separation and partial oxidation units for Eastman Chemical at its Longview, Texas, complex. The firms say the partial oxidation unit will recycle CO₂, reducing the carbon intensity of the Eastman facility.

Siemens, the Siemens unit PSE, and Perceptive Engineering are partnering with the UK’s Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre to advance continuous drug-making processes. The partners aim to develop systems that quickly produce small volumes of personalized medicines.

Evonik Industries is investing about $17 million at its Marl, Germany, site to increase output of three isobutene derivatives over 50% by December 2021. The derivatives are tert-butyl alcohol, di-isobutene, and 3,5,5-trimethylhexanal.

Repsol will spend $37 million to build a polypropylene line in Tarragona, Spain, by next year. The polypropylene grade the plant will produce has good impact resistance, making it suitable for automotive applications, Repsol says.

Zeopore Technologies, a Belgian start-up, has raised undisclosed financing from Capricorn Partners, Innovation Fund, and other investors to commercialize catalytic mesoporous zeolites. ­Zeopore says the low-cost zeolites can be used in refining, petrochemical production, and plastic-waste conversion.

Gilead Sciences will pay $120 million to license an experimental cancer-antibody therapy from Jounce Therapeutics. The antibody is intended to reduce immunosuppressive tumor-infiltrating T regulatory cells by targeting CCR8.

Kinnate Biopharma has raised $98 million in series C financing to further develop its small-molecule inhibitors of kinases linked to treatment-resistant cancers. The start-up raised $75 million in December 2019.