Business Roundup

Kemira will build a 25,000 m² research center with labs and offices in Espoo, Finland, to develop biobased products and more. The Finnish firm says the center will cost about $90 million and open in 2024.

Trinseo has started purchasing from BASF styrene that is derived partly from a feedstock of plastic waste or renewable oils. Trinseo is using the styrene to make solution styrene-butadiene rubber and polystyrene.

Solugen will use artificial intelligence developed by Nanotronics to automate its enzymatic production of water treatment peroxides. The firms say the AI will respond quickly to process anomalies and help secure the system against hackers.

Baker Hughes will license SRI International’s mixed-salt process for middle-to large-scale carbon-capture projects. This adds to Baker Hughes’s planned purchase of Compact Carbon Capture, a start-up developing rotating-bed technology for small- to-middle-scale CO₂ capture.

Pili, a French biotech firm developing pigments made via fermentation, has raised $4.7 million from investors that include the French government. The company will use the funds to scale up production and test the pigments in inks and paints.

Raybow Pharmaceutical of China plans to invest $15.8 million over the next 5 years at its pharmaceutical services operation in Brevard, North Carolina, tripling the workforce to 74. Raybow bought the facility, the former PharmAgra Labs, in 2019.

Eliem Therapeutics has launched with $80 million to make small-molecule drugs for neuronal excitability disorders including anxiety, chronic pain, depression, and epilepsy. Its lead compound is a nonopioid molecule for pain that acts via the palmitoylethanolamide pathway.

Takeda Pharmaceutical is partnering with the chemoproteomics drug discovery firm BridGene Biosciences to develop small molecules for traditionally “undruggable” targets, with an initial focus on neuroscience. ­BridGene will get an up-front payment plus milestones that could exceed $500 million.