Business Roundup

DuPont says that an appeals court judge in West Virginia has upheld a claim by 10 people that pollution produced by a zinc smelter that the firm once operated in the town of Spelter had sickened them (C&EN, March 3, 2008, page 18). However, the judge reduced a $196 million punitive damages award to $98 million and granted DuPont a new trial on the firm's claim that the statute of limitations on the charges had expired. DuPont sold the plant in 1950.

Calgon Carbon has paid Mitsubishi Chemical $8 million to increase its ownership in the firms' Japan-based activated-carbon joint venture from 49% to 80%, and it plans to buy the remaining shares next year for about $2.5 million. The joint venture, now named Calgon Carbon Japan, had sales of $78 million last year.

Cognis is selling its ultraviolet acrylates business to IGM Resins, which is based in Waalwijk, the Netherlands. The business makes monomers and oligomers for applications such as radiation-cured coatings and includes a plant in Charlotte, N.C.

Arkema has agreed to sell its specialty methacrylates unit to Evonik. The business includes n-butyl methacrylate, 2-ethylhexyl methacrylate, and dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate. The methacrylates are used in applications such as coatings.

Kuraray of Japan plans to build a 5,000-metric-ton-per-year plant for a new type of acrylic elastomer, a block copolymer of methyl methacrylate and butyl acrylate, at its Niigata prefecture facility in Tainai City. Completion of the $54 million plant in Japan is scheduled for August 2011.

Lonza is expanding capacity for its l-carnitine products, Carnipure and Carniking, at its site in Nansha, China. Lonza will add the capacity in phases, the first of which will be completed by year-end. The nutrition ingredients are destined for food, feed, and pharmaceutical applications.

Avila Therapeutics and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society have teamed to develop AVL-292, Avila's treatment for adults with B-cell cancers. LLS will put $3.2 million toward the development of AVL-292, which Avila expects to put into Phase I trials this year.

Medivation is laying off 20% of its staff, or 23 workers, to focus resources on the development of the prostate cancer drug MDV3100 and on Dimebon, which has been in development to treat Alzheimer's and Huntington's diseases. Medivation's stock lost two-thirds of its value last month after Dimebon failed to show any efficacy in a Phase III trial for Alzheimer's treatment.