Business Roundup

BKG Water Solutions, part of Israel Chemicals’ BK Giulini subsidiary, has acquired Tiami Vattenkemi, a Swedish water treatment firm, for an undisclosed sum. Founded in 1991, Tiami provides an array of water treatment chemicals, equipment, and services in the Nordic region.

Lanxess will work with the German biotechnology firm Evocatal to develop biotech routes to rubber precursors. The companies say their partnership is part of a German-government-​supported consortium called ThRuBio, which stands for thermoplastics and rubber via biotechnological synthesis.

BASF will expand capacity for ammonium bicarbonate and ammonium carbonate at its plant in Ludwigshafen, Germany, by 30%. To be completed early next year, the project is in response to rising demand for leavening agents by the food industry, BASF says.

Showa Denko will acquire from China’s Sinosteel a 67% stake in Sinosteel Sichuan Carbon, a producer of graphite electrodes based in Sichuan province, China. Showa Denko already produces graphite electrodes at plants in Japan and the U.S.

Keyuan Petrochemicals, an independent petrochemical producer based in Ningbo, China, will be permanently de­listed from the NASDAQ stock exchange in the U.S. NASDAQ suspended Keyuan’s stock in October 2011 after it failed to satisfactorily file certain documents.

Harvest Power, an organic-materials recycler, raised $110 million in a third round of venture capital funding led by True North Venture Partners. The start-up takes in organic wastes and uses composting and biogas facilities to produce compost, mulch, electricity, natural gas, and fuel for industrial boilers.

Eli Lilly & Co. has sold Vanda Pharmaceuticals the rights to LY686017, a neurokinin 1 receptor (NK-1R) antagonist in development for a range of central nervous system disorders, including alcohol dependence. Vanda will pay a $1 million licensing fee and take on all development costs for the drug.

AstraZeneca has signed up to use Conformetrix’ NMR technology to improve lead discovery across its preclinical drug pipeline. Conformetrix says it can determine the 3-D structure of drug molecules in their bioactive state. The companies will also use the technology to figure out the bioactive conformation of naturally occurring ligands.

GlaxoSmithKline has entered a second alliance with South San Francisco-based Five Prime Therapeutics, this one focused on biologic drugs for respiratory diseases. Five Prime is eligible for up to $30 million in research funding and investment by GSK. The firms’ existing alliance is in skeletal muscle disorders.