Business Roundup

Shell plants to build an 820,000-metric-ton-per-year biofuel facility at its site in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Set to open in 2024, the plant will make fuel out of waste cooking oil and animal fat, as well as out of residual industrial and ag products.

Olon, an Italian pharmaceutical services firm, says it will embark on a “major expansion” of its site in Settimo Torinese, Italy, to boost production of protein drugs by microbial fermentation. Olon says its current fermentation capacity is 4,500 m³.

Versalis has acquired technology and plants belonging to Ecoplastic, an Italian firm specializing in recycling styrenic polymers. Versalis will use the technology to build a plant in Porto Marghera, Italy, with capacity to recycle 20,000 metric tons of plastic per year.

Membrion has raised an additional $3 million to advance its ceramic desalination membranes for industrial wastewater treatment, which it has begun shipping to customers. The investment adds to the Seattle firm’s $6 million series A funding round, which closed in March 2020.

Ventyx Biosciences has raised $51 million in series B funding to develop therapies for people with inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The company’s pipeline includes small molecules that modulate a tyrosine kinase, a sphingosine 1-phosphate receptor, and the NLRP3 inflammasome.

Bayer has signed a deal worth up to $254 million to use Gubra’s peptide-based drug discovery platform to develop treatments for heart and kidney diseases. Denmark-based Gubra, which uses machine learning, already has a therapeutic peptide in development.

Lonza says it will invest in its finished-drug contract manufacturing capacity in Switzerland. Additions will include an aseptic filling line for biologic drugs in Stein and parenteral dosage form capacity in Basel.

Elevian has raised $40 million in series A funding to advance a possible stroke treatment through clinical trials. Elevian’s pipeline focuses on modulators of growth differentiation factor 11, which it says is involved in aging and regeneration.