Business Roundup

Chevron PhillipsChemical has signed an agreement with Nexus Fuels for the supply of pyrolysis oil to make Chevron’s Marlex Anew circular polyethylene in Baytown, Texas. Nexus operates a plant near Atlanta that breaks down postconsumer plastics into the oil.

BASF will be the exclusive supplier to the cosmetics industry of four peptides from the peptide maker Caregen. BASF says it will start this year to offer peptide-based cosmetic ingredients to combat aging, dark spots, acne, and dermatitis.

Ineos Styrolution plans to build a pilot plant in Belgium to make the engineering resin acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene out of recycled plastic. The company also has plans to make polystyrene out of recycled styrene.

Chevron has invested in Blue Planet, a start-up that uses captured flue gas CO₂ to make synthetic limestone for use as an aggregate in concrete. Blue Planet says each metric ton of its aggregate sequesters 444 kg of CO₂.

Corbion will expand its lactic acid capacity in Blair, Nebraska, by 40%. The firm cited growth in lactic acid’s popularity as a natural preservative for food, personal care, and cleaning products.

Servier will license MiNA Therapeutics’ small activating RNA (saRNA) platform to develop neurological treatments. The agreement is worth up to $266 million to MiNA in up-front, development, and other payments. SaRNAs can increase the activity of certain genes.

Libra Speciality Chemicals is expanding its capacity to make betaine surfactants in the UK. Libra says betaines can replace sodium laureth sulfate, a common surfactant that has come under scrutiny because of the contaminant 1,4-dioxane.

Takeda Pharmaceutical is expanding its investment in gene therapy by partnering with Evozyne, a Chicago-based protein-engineering company. Evozyne will design synthetic proteins as treatments for genetic metabolic diseases, and Takeda will encode those protein sequences into gene therapies.