Business Roundup

BASF has acquired Zodiac Enterprises, a Texas-based recycler of precious metals from industrial scrap such as chemical catalysts. BASF says the purchase will complement its existing precious metal–recycling operations.

DuPont says it has expanded its ion-exchange resin plant in Chauny, France, in response to high demand from the drug industry. The resins are used as active ingredients and excipients for controlled release and taste masking.

Reliance Industries and Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. say they will build an integrated chlor-alkali complex in Ruwais, Abu ­Dhabi, where other chemical plants are being built. The complex will include chlorine, ethylene dichloride, and polyvinyl chloride plants.

Strand Therapeutics has raised $52 million in series A financing to develop programmable messenger RNA therapies that can be turned on or off in certain cells of the body. The start-up aims to have its lead program for cancer immunotherapy in a clinical trial next year.

Baker Hughes is adding carbon dioxide utilization to its CO₂ capture offerings through an investment in the start-up Electrochaea. The German firm uses methanogenic archaea to ferment CO₂ and H₂ into methane.

Nu-Tek BioScience has begun construction in Austin, Minnesota, on what it says will be the first US plant to make animal-free peptones. Peptones are used in cell culture media and ­probiotic culture fermentation.

ArriVent Biopharma has launched with up to $150 million in financing to develop furmonertinib, a cancer treatment licensed from Allist Pharmaceuticals. Furmonertinib, which blocks the epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase, was approved in China in March.

Eli Lilly and Company will invest $15 million in MiNA Therapeutics following an earlier agreement to use MiNA’s small activating RNA technology to develop drug candidates for immuno-oncology and genetic diseases. MiNA will use the cash to expand its drug pipeline.