Business Roundup

Dow Chemical will sell a portion of its corn seed hybrid business in Brazil to Citic Agri Fund for $1.1 billion. The divestiture was required by Brazilian antitrust authorities as a condition of approving Dow’s merger with DuPont, which the firms expect to complete next month.

Merck KGaA will spend close to $100 million to consolidate its European lab chemicals production network. Four plants in Germany will close in the process. The firm says the program will eliminate about 200 jobs over five years.

Nova Chemicals has completed its $2.1 billion acquisition of Williams Partners’ 88% stake in an olefins plant in Geismar, La. Nova also struck a deal to purchase feedstock from Williams on a long-term basis.

Perstorp, a Swedish producer of plastics additives, has acquired Polialcoli, an Italy-based polyols maker, from its parent company Polioli for an undisclosed sum. Polialcoli, which has been in receivership for the past four years, has 74 employees.

Mirexus Biotechnologies has raised $12 million to commercialize polysaccharide nanoparticles for use in cosmetics and nutraceuticals. The Canadian company says it will build a facility to make the functional particles, which are derived from corn.

Catalent Pharma Solutions is providing its OptiGel Mini soft-gel technology for Pfizer’s launch of Advil Liqui-Gel Minis, a smaller version of the firm’s ibuprofen capsules. The capsules are being made at Catalent’s plant in St. Petersburg, Fla.Givaudan, the Swiss flavors and fragrances firm, is acquiring Vika, a Dutch producer of dairy ingredients and vegetable extracts. Vika has annual sales of about $73 million and more than 200 employees.

Decibel Therapeutics has received an investment of undisclosed size from GV, formerly Google Ventures. Decibel, which is developing drugs for hearing loss, says it will also work with GV to apply big data sciences in the field of hearing.