IN BRIEF
Clariant completes exit Clariant has completed the divestment of its 50 % stake in Scientific Design Company . Together with a profit-sharing agreement that ran until closing , its net cash inflow was $ 139.4 million . The firm will use this to invest in growth projects within the core business areas , execute its sustainability and innovation strategy , fund performance improvement programmes and boost its balance sheet .
Japanese firms form API venture
Nitrogen-fixing deal Mosaic Company and BioConsortia , both based in California , have agreed to develop and launch the latter ’ s nitrogen-fixing microbial products for all crops in China , India , Thailand and Vietnam . This follows a collaboration to develop these products for the Americas at the end of 2020 and field trials in the US and Canada . Fertiliser producer Mosaic already has sales channels in place in the region .
Cinven buys Bayer ESP Private equity firm Cinven has agreed to acquire Bayer ’ s Environmental Science Professional ( ESP ) business for € 2.4 billion . ESP offers pest , disease and weed control in nonagricultural applications . In 2021 , it employed about 800 people in over 100 countries . Bayer announced plans to divest the business , which is headquartered in Cary , North Carolina , in February 2021 .
Amris big in Brazil Amyris has started commissioning a new fermentation plant next to the Raizen sugar mill in Barra Bonita , Brazil . This is designed with a process tower twice as tall as the one at the Brotas plant to use gravity in its vertical process and consists of five fermentation ‘ mini-factories ’ that can produce all of the firm ’ s current and future bio-fermented products .
Seven Japanese firms have come together to create a joint venture that will develop technology for continuous manufacturing ( CM ) of APIs and intermediates and a CDMO business applying it . Pharmira , whose name comes from ‘ pharmaceutical ’ and the Japanese word for ‘ future ’, employs 27 and is based at Amagasaki . The majority ( 50.1 %) stake is held by Shionogi Pharma , which offers contract services from the development of manufacturing methods for APIs and formulation development to commercial production . Other shareholders are : Chiyoda with 17.0 %, Taisei ( 15.9 %), Fujimoto Chemicals ( 10.0 %), Takenaka ( 5.3 %), Yokogawa Electric ( 1.1 %) and Nagase ( 0.7 %). “ Following drastic changes in the environment surrounding APIs and intermediates in recent years , further acceleration of pharmaceutical development and building a stable supply network for APIs have become urgent issues , especially against the threat of infectious diseases ,” the companies stated . CM , they believe , will help both to shorten the time needed to develop manufacturing methods in the pharmaceutical development stage and to improve the efficiency of commercial production “ by conserving manpower and space and to enable advanced quality assurance for high-quality pharmaceutical products ”. Batch manufacture will also be used to meet customer needs , while CM will be mainly applied to reaction and crystallisation processes .
8 SPECIALITY CHEMICALS MAGAZINE ESTABLISHED 1981