Business Roundup

Tokuyama and Formosa Plastics will build a plant to make high-purity isopropyl alcohol for use in semiconductor cleaning applications. The plant, which will employ direct hydration of propylene, will be at Formosa’s site in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan.

Air Liquide has acquired 80% of the French company Cryoconcept, which specializes in near-absolute-zero refrigeration based on helium-3 and helium-4. Cryoconcept has 14 employees.

Creo, a firm making fermentation-derived ingredients, has launched to produce cannabigerol (CBG) and other rare cannabinoids. Creo has worked with Genomatica since 2016 to develop the process to make CBG, which can be used in skin-care products.

Sundew has raised $1.6 million in a seed round of funding led by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. It’s developing a biopesticide that can treat infection by the parasite Ichthyophthirius multifiliis, which causes white spot disease in fish. The product is based on aquaculture research from the Netherlands Institute of Ecology.

Blue California, a maker of food and supplement ingredients, and the fermentation specialist Conagen have developed a technology that blocks bitter flavors.Growth in plant-based foods will drive adoption of bitter blockers in foods containing coffee, cocoa, and plant proteins and extracts, the firms say.

Givaudan has sold its pectin portfolio, which it acquired with the ingredient firm Naturex in 2018, to the German pectin maker Herbstreith & Fox. Givaudan says the business had roughly $25 million in sales in 2019.

XtalPi has raised $319 million in a series C funding found. The firm, based in the US and China, applies quantum physics, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing to drug discovery.

Dewpoint Therapeutics has raised $77 million in its second formal fundraising round. The Boston-based biotech firm is developing therapies that modulate biomolecular condensates, transient, membraneless organelles that help key biomolecules allow chemical reactions to occur.