Business briefing for April 14

LanzaTech gets lowball takeover offer

The ethanol technology firm LanzaTech has received a takeover offer of 2 cents per share from one of its investors, Carbon Direct Capital Management. Carbon Direct says the offer, which is at about a tenth of LanzaTech’s current stock price, may be the only thing that keeps LanzaTech from going bankrupt. LanzaTech says its partners operate six commercial facilities worldwide using its fermentation technology to convert carbon monoxide into ethanol. But the firm has been struggling. During the first 9 months of last year, it generated a loss of $110.7 million on $37.6 million in sales. In January, LanzaTech said it would spin off its synthetic biology platform. It later requested an extension for publishing its 2024 annual report. And in March, the company announced a $30 million cost reduction program that would cut 10–15% of its workforce.—Alex Tullo

OQ is sold and becomes Oxea again

The carboxylic acid producer OQ Chemicals has been acquired from the Oman Investment Authority by the investment firms Blantyre and Strategic Value Partners. Financial terms were not disclosed. As part of the deal, OQ, which has about 1,200 employees, has readopted its former name, Oxea. The company was forced to restructure its balance sheet in 2024 after its debt was rated default by S&P Global Ratings. Its new owners say the business is poised for growth. Oxea produces alcohols, polyols, plasticizers, carboxylic acids, specialty esters, and amines at sites in Germany and Texas.—Alex Scott

Solvay adds rare earths in France

Solvay has started up a new production line at its rare earth elements site in La Rochelle, France. The line will allow Solvay to offer rare earths used to make permanent magnets for applications such as wind turbines and electric vehicle motors. The company says it will source the rare earths from used magnets, mine tailings, and elements mined from outside China. Caremag recently secured $121 million from Japanese investors and $116 million from the French government to build a rare earths production plant in Lacq, France.—Alex Scott

CF, partners move on ammonia plant

CF Industries Holdings is moving forward with plans to build a $4 billion low-carbon ammonia project in Louisiana with the Japanese energy company Jera and the Japanese conglomerate Mitsui & Co. Set to open in 2029, the plant will cost $4 billion and have the capacity to make 1.4 million metric tons of ammonia per year from natural gas using an autothermal reforming process. The plant will capture the carbon dioxide emissions; the Occidental Petroleum subsidiary 1PointFive will transport and sequester them. CF will operate the plant and own 40% of the venture. Jera will own 35%, while Mitsui will have a 25% stake.—Alex Tullo

Maruzen will shutter Japanese cracker

Maruzen Petrochemical has decided to close its ethylene cracker in Chiba, Japan, by the end of its fiscal year and consolidate production in Keiyo Ethylene, its joint venture with Sumitomo Chemical. The firms blame the closure on overcapacity caused by new large-scale plants in China and declining ethylene demand in Japan. Maruzen’s plant has about 525,000 metric tons (t) per year of annual capacity. The partners say Keiyo Ethylene operates the largest and most advanced cracker in Japan and has 768,000 t of annual output.—Alex Tullo

Nippon Sanso cancels US hydrogen project

Nippon Sanso, the industrial gas subsidiary of Mitsubishi Chemical Group, is taking an impairment loss of more than $70 million for the cancellation of a US hydrogen project. The company’s announcement doesn’t specify the project being cancelled, but its Matheson affiliate signed an agreement in 2022 to build a plant at a Vertex Energy refinery in Mobile, Alabama, that would make hydrogen from coproducts of biodiesel production. Nippon Sanso blamed the cancellation on the “current business environment.”—Alex Tullo

JSR names new CEO

The Japanese chemical maker JSR has named Tetsuro Hori CEO. Hori, a longtime JSR executive, replaces Eric Johnson, an American who became CEO in 2019. The firm says the change is necessary to achieve its short- and medium-term goals and realize long-term growth. Johnson is the second non-Japanese CEO of a Japanese chemical company to depart recently. Last year, Mitsubishi Chemical Group replaced Jean-Marc Gilson, a former Dow Corning executive, after 3 years at the helm.—Michael McCoy

Kuraray acquires surface modifying firm

Kuraray has acquired Nelumbo, a provider of surface modification technology, for an undisclosed sum. Nelumbo was founded in 2015 by University of California, Berkeley, engineers to “bring metamaterials to everyday products,” according to its website. One of its products, IceNein, is a surface treatment that keeps cold surfaces frost-free longer by repelling water. Kuraray, a Japanese chemical company, says it has worked with Nelumbo since 2023 on modifying the surfaces of fibers and other polymers.—Michael McCoy

Wacker and Lonza advance mRNA services

Wacker Biotech has partnered with the start-up RNAV8 Bio to offer services for developing and manufacturing messenger RNA–based therapies. The deal will leverage Wacker’s expertise in plasmid DNA and mRNA manufacturing and RNAV8’s mRNA engineering platform, Wacker says. Meanwhile, Lonza, a Swiss drug services firm, will collaborate with the German biotech Ethris on room-temperature stable, spray-dried formulations of mRNA-based vaccine candidates for respiratory diseases.—Aayushi Pratap

RayThera raises funds for immunology

RayThera, a San Diego–based biotech founded in August 2023, has raised $110 million in series A financing to develop small-molecule drugs to treat immunological conditions. The company was started by Qing Dong and Gene Hung, who had previously cofounded the cancer drug biotech XinThera. The pair sold XinThera to Gilead Sciences in 2023. The start-up plans to use the funds to advance inflammation treatments through clinical studies.—Aayushi Pratap

Solu raises cash for rare blood cancer

Solu Therapeutics has raised $41 million in series A funding to fight chronic myelomonocytic leukemia, a rare blood cancer. The Boston-based start-up has also begun a Phase 1 trial for its STX-0712 drug candidate, a bifunctional small molecule that it calls a CyTAC, or cytotoxicity targeting chimera. CyTACs, which Solu licensed from GSK, are meant to bind to a target and an antibody, which then recruits the immune system to eliminate the target. Eli Lilly and Company contributed to the funding round.—Sarah Braner

Lilly licenses Sangamo delivery tech

Eli Lilly and Company will pay $18 million up front to license Sangamo Therapeutic’s neurotropic adeno-associated virus (AAV) capsid STAC-BBB for use with an undisclosed genomic medicine that treats a disease of the central nervous system. Lilly can add four more targets for additional payments. Sangamo says its AAV capsid can deliver genetic material more efficiently than conventional AAVs can.—Michael McCoy

Business Roundup

Saudi Aramco and the Chinese petrochemical maker Sinopec have agreed to build a petrochemical complex in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia. The complex will have annual production capacity for 1.8 million metric tons (t) of ethylene and 1.5 million t of aromatics, as well as associated derivatives.

ExxonMobil plans to start making 99.999% pure isopropyl alcohol (IPA) at its Baton Rouge, Louisiana, plant by 2027 for sale to the semiconductor industry as a cleaning solvent. Exxon says the plant is the world’s largest IPA producer.

Lummus Technology has started up a demonstration electric ethylene cracking unit at its R&D center in Pasadena, Texas. The company says it hopes to make a system versatile enough to handle different feedstocks, including pyrolysis oil and biobased materials.

Epoch Design has raised $18.3 million to commercialize an enzymatic process that it says converts waste fabrics into monomers and then back into nylon or polyester in a few hours. By running at low temperature, the process can compete on cost with virgin plastics, the UK company says.

Volvo has become one of several investors in Altris, a Swedish sodium-ion battery start-up. Altris says its Prussian white cathode material will transform the battery industry by offering a safer, more effective solution than current lithium-ion batteries.

Bloom Renewables has raised $14.7 million in series A funding to advance its process for treating wood with an aldehyde that stabilizes wood’s lignin polymers and hemicellulose sugars so they can be turned into bioaromatic compounds. The Swiss firm says it will use the funds to engineer a commercial-scale plant.

GSK has teamed up with ABL Bio for the start-up’s Grabody-B technology, which is meant to help drugs cross the blood-brain barrier. GSK will pay ABL about $100 million in up-front and near-term payments.

AIRNA, an RNA editing start-up, has raised $155 million in series B funding. It will use the cash to fund a Phase 1/2 clinical trial of its lead RNA-editing candidate, AIR-001, for the treatment of α-1 antitrypsin deficiency.