Business briefing for April 28

Tariffs start to push up chemical costs

New US tariffs—10% on goods from most countries and 145% on goods from China—are starting to trickle through the US chemical industry and leading a few chemical users to impose tariff surcharges on their products to pass along the added costs. The institutional cleaning and water treatment firm Ecolab is imposing a 5% surcharge on all its products and services in response to the new duties. “We cannot fully mitigate these increases, necessitating adjustments in our pricing,” Ecolab CEO Christophe Beck says in an announcement. Another water treatment firm, Solenis, is applying a minimum 5% surcharge. The company says it is “prioritizing localized production to reduce exposure to international cost swings.” And the polyol business of the Swedish specialty chemical maker Perstorp says it will institute surcharges in the US that will vary by product and country of origin.—ALEX TULLO

Chemtrade strikes deal to keep chlorine plant open

Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund says it has signed a letter of intent with the Port of Vancouver that may allow it to continue running its chlorine facility at the port. The firm still needs to clear a rezoning process to keep the facility operating past 2030. Chemtrade says the facility provides chlorine for drinking-water sanitation to much of Western Canada. A group calling itself Keep North Vancouver Safe has lobbied against the rezoning. But an investigation by two Canadian news organizations disclosed last fall that the group was funded by K2 Pure Solutions, a US company that produces bleach for the drinking-water sanitation market.—MICHAEL MCCOY

Ampac to boost perchlorate capacity for rocket market

American Pacific (Ampac) says it will spend $100 million to expand production of ammonium perchlorate, an oxidizer used in solid-phase rocket fuel, at its site in Cedar City, Utah. Ampac says the investment, which requires the approval of its parent company, NewMarket, will boost the plant’s capacity by 50%. “The increased capacity will allow AMPAC to meet the demand of U.S. military and space launch programs, while also addressing the needs of U.S. allies,” the firm says in a statement. The US Defense Department has been working to onshore its chemical supply chains through grants, loans, and expedited procurement processes.—CRAIG BETTENHAUSEN

AdvanSix files patent dispute against Arxada and Azelis

The chemical maker AdvanSix has filed a patent infringement action with European patent authorities against the chemical maker Arxada and the distributor Azelis over the paint and coating ingredient 2-pentanone oxime. The chemical is added to alkyd paints to prevent the formation of skins during storage and transport. Demand for 2-pentanone oxime is expanding as a replacement for methyl ethyl ketone oxime, which is under regulatory scrutiny in several regions over concerns that it may cause cancer and carry other health risks.—CRAIG BETTENHAUSEN

Polyvantis starts up solar installation

Polyvantis, the acrylic and polycarbonate sheet business of Röhm, has started up a solar power installation in Weiterstadt, Germany. The plant will have the capacity to produce 3.6 MW of electricity and replace 10% of the electric power used at the site, the firm says. Polyvantis says the new power source will reduce its carbon footprint by 750 metric tons per year.—ALEX TULLO

Haltermann stalls SAF project in Germany

Haltermann Carless has shelved what would have been Germany’s largest sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) project, a 60,000-metric-ton-per-year alcohol-to-fuel plant near the city of Speyer. The project had progressed to the conceptual design phase, but Haltermann says it has not received sufficiently “reliable commitments” from industry and government to advance it. Despite the halt, CEO Peter Friesenhahn says in a press release that he remains “firmly convinced that Sustainable Aviation Fuels will play a crucial role in shaping a more environmentally responsible future for aviation.”—ALEX SCOTT

Japanese firms advance green ammonia

The Japanese company Tsubame BHB will provide the Brazilian biofuel maker Atvos Agroindustrial Participações with a plant that can make 20,000 metric tons (t) per year of green ammonia. Atvos estimates that replacing fossil fuel–based fertilizers with green ammonia from the proposed plant will reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 11,000 t per year. Separately, the Japanese engineering firm JGC Holdings will build an ammonia cracking pilot plant that uses a low-ruthenium catalyst from New York–based Amogy. JGC says it plans to crack low-carbon ammonia to produce hydrogen on a large scale.—ALEX SCOTT

Biomanufacturers Manus and Inscripta merge

The biomanufacturing firms Manus Bio and Inscripta have merged. Inscripta uses CRISPR tools to create microbes that can produce various biobased chemicals. Manus operates a biomanufacturing facility in Georgia where microbes produce chemicals like the grapefruit fragrance nootkatone and a low-calorie sweetener. The companies say they have complementary product portfolios that cover food, cosmetics, and agriculture. Shareholders approved the merger, but the companies didn’t disclose financial details.—MATT BLOIS

Orbia opens electrolyte plant in Wisconsin

The fluorochemical firm Orbia has opened a battery electrolyte mixing plant in Madison, Wisconsin, that it built with funding from an $8.4 million US Department of Defense contract. Orbia is also building a facility in Georgia that will manufacture lithium hexafluorophosphate, a salt that is mixed with carbonates to make electrolytes for lithium-ion batteries. Orbia acquired the Wisconsin electrolyte technology firm Silatronix in November 2021 and later established an electrolyte R&D center in the state.—MATT BLOIS

Roche and Regeneron announce drug investments in the US

Against the backdrop of President Donald J. Trump’s call for the onshoring of manufacturing, the Swiss drugmaker Roche says it will invest $50 billion in the US over the next 5 years. The funds will go toward new R&D sites and expanding the company’s drug production footprint in the country. The investment will create 1,200 new jobs, Roche says. Meanwhile, New York–based Regeneron says it will put $3 billion into a decade-long partnership with Fujifilm to ramp up drug supply at Fujifilm’s biologic medicines plant in Holly Springs, North Carolina.—AAYUSHI PRATAP

Boehringer expands autoimmune, cancer drug R&D with Cue, Tessellate deals

The German drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim has tapped the Boston start-up Cue Biopharma for a deal worth up to $357 million. Boehringer will pay $12 million up front plus potential milestone payments for the rights to develop an immunomodulating drug candidate for autoimmune diseases. The candidate, CUE-501, is a biologic designed to work by binding to a B-cell-specific membrane protein and engaging virus-specific memory killer T cells. Meanwhile, Boehringer has begun working with Tessellate Bio to develop oral drugs for cancers dependent on alternative lengthening of telomeres to grow. Boehringer has agreed to pay the smaller firm up to about $664 million.—ROWAN WALRATH

Merck licenses oral peptide technology from Cyprumed

Merck & Co. will pay Cyprumed up to $493 million in up front and milestone payments to license technology used to develop oral peptide therapeutics. Austria-based Cyprumed specializes in oral delivery of peptides such as macrocycles, glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) analogs, and miniproteins. Oral GLP-1 drug development has been a particularly active field. Eli Lilly and Company and Pfizer are working on small-molecule GLP-1 drugs. But while Lilly recently boasted positive results for its candidate, Pfizer had to cease development on its candidate after observing liver toxicity in one trial participant.—SARAH BRANER

Business Roundup

Indorama Ventures has sold its purified terephthalic acid plant in Portugal to an unnamed buyer for about $100,000. The plant has been idle for 2 years.

Olin and Plug Power have commissioned their joint venture hydrogen liquefaction plant in Saint Gabriel, Louisiana. The plant captures hydrogen that is generated during the production of chlorine and caustic soda.

Li-Cube has raised $6 million in seed funding to build a direct lithium extraction pilot plant in Texas. The company will use electrodialysis to extract lithium out of wastewater from oil fields.

Lummus Technology has started up a demonstration unit for its process to destroy per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in water and wastewater streams. The facility, which also uses technology from the electrochemistry firm Element Six, is in La Porte, Texas.

Covation Biomaterials has launched a biobased version of polytetramethylene ether glycol, a raw material for spandex and other flexible polymers. The DuPont spinout is building a plant for the process in China’s Jiangsu Province that it says will be on-line in early 2026.

Sumitomo Chemical has established Sumitomo Chemical Advanced Medical Solutions America in Marlborough, Massachusetts, to make long-chain oligonucleotides for pharmaceutical industry clients. The company will start providing services in August.

Lonza, a Swiss drug services firm, has joined the Scottish research hub CMAC to enhance its services related to particle technologies and drug product development. Lonza says the association will provide access to CMAC’s advanced chemistry, manufacturing, and control technologies.

CarboGen Amcis, a Swiss drug ingredient maker, says its new Shanghai facility has received licenses and regulatory approvals from Chinese authorities. The firm says the 40,000 m² site employs over 140 people in the production of drug raw materials and active pharmaceutical ingredients.