Dutch paints and performance coatings company AkzoNobel has signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with Chinese energy and chemicals company Sinopec. The partnership will leverage the supply of high-performance AkzoNobel coatings products to Sinopec and its affiliated institutions for overseas construction projects. The products include anti-corrosive coatings for steel structures, protective coatings specifically designed for high temperature resistance, chemical-resistant coatings for storage tanks and high-performance fireproof coatings. They’ll be used for building refining facilities, natural gas processing plants and chemical production sites.
Swiss speciality chemical company Clariant is expanding its Cangzhou, China production site for the manufacture of the multifunctional additive Nylostab S-EED, used to upgrade the quality of nylon products through enhanced colour stability, heat resistance and composite compatibility during the manufacturing process, resulting in overall higher productivity. The new, second production line in the Hebei Province of China, will jointly be owned and operated by Clariant and its local partner Beijing Tiangang Auxiliary Company.
Swedish specialty chemicals company Perstorp, a wholly owned subsidiary of Malaysian chemicals producer PETRONAS Chemicals Group Berhad, has acquired 100% of the shares of OQ Chemicals Nederland, a Dutch subsidiary of German chemicals company OQ Chemicals GmbH. The deal provides Perstorp with full ownership and control over all the Dutch company’s production assets, related technology and employees.
Novo Nordisk has completed its acquisition of three manufacturing sites from Novo Holdings, which manages the assets of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, an international enterprise foundation focusing on medical treatment and research. The completion follows the finalisation of Novo Holdings’ acquisition of Catalent, a US provider of drug delivery technologies, drug development, drug manufacturing, biologics, gene therapy and consumer health products. The three manufacturing sites, which specialise in the sterile filling of drugs, are located in Anagni (Italy), Brussels (Belgium) and Bloomington (Indiana, US). The sites employ more than 3,000 people and were priced at an upfront payment of $11bn.
MilliporeSigma, the US and Canadian life science business of Merck, headquartered in Darmstadt, Germany, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Dutch biotech HUB Organoids Holding. Organoids are cell culture models that functionally resemble an organ. They have the potential to speed up drug development, improve understanding of disease treatment in diverse populations and reduce the industry’s reliance on animal testing. HUB possesses a foundational patent portfolio on organoids and offers services ranging from new model generation to assay development and high-throughput screening. It employs 70 people.
Portage Biotech, a clinical-stage immuno-oncology company with a portfolio of novel multi-targeted therapies for use as a monotherapy and in combination, has entered a Letter of Intent (LoI)with Immunova, a private US-based biotech. Under the terms of the LoI, Portage and Immunova have agreed to negotiate a definitive option agreement for Immunova to acquire the entire share capital of iOx Therapeutics, an immunotherapy firm spun out by Oxford University Innovation and a wholly owned UK subsidiary of Portage. iOx is focused on developing liposomal iNKT agonists, and its lead candidate, PORT-2, has demonstrated promising preliminary clinical activity.
€120m
German science and technology company Merck is to invest over €70m to construct a new Advanced Materials Development Center at its Shizuoka site in Japan. This latest investment brings Merck’s total Shizuoka investment to over €120m since 2021, enhancing its existing capabilities and underscoring the company’s focus on semiconductor technology R&D. The new 5,500m2 facility will feature cutting-edge cleanrooms and advanced laboratories.
20MW
Danish hydrogen energy company Everfuel has announced that its subsidiary Everfuel Production Karlstad has been awarded a grant by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency under the Climate Leap (Klimatklivet) investment program. This follows a funding application made in 2022 for a 20MW electrolyser project. The project is a joint initiative with the local utility company, Karlstads Energi.
40,000m2
Danish healthcare company Novo Nordisk has revealed plans to invest 8.5bn Danish kroner to establish a new production facility in Odense, Denmark. The investment marks the first time this century that Novo Nordisk has established a new production site in Denmark. The new site will feature a state-of-the-art finished production facility with warehouse spanning over 40,000m2. Designed to be modular and flexible, it will accommodate multiple product types for rare diseases.
100%
ATOME, a UK-listed developer of green fertiliser, has taken steps to acquire a further 13 hectares of land in Paraguay to expand the footprint of its Villeta Project to 43 hectares. Villeta is an industrial-scale green fertiliser facility that uses 100% baseload renewable hydroelectric power to produce zero-carbon, green fertiliser. The planned 264,000t of annual production of the Villeta Project will save 12.5m t of CO2e across the project lifespan.
US biopharma Gilead Sciences and US biotech Terray Therapeutics have announced a strategic collaboration to discover and develop novel, small-molecule therapies across multiple targets. Terray will use its tNova platform to discover and develop small molecule compounds against a set of targets selected by Gilead. If Gilead exercises its option to exclusively license the compounds directed to a target, Gilead will be responsible for further development and commercialisation activities for products resulting from the collaboration. The tNova platform combines high-throughput chemical experimentation and computational analysis with a generative AI-driven drug discovery engine to find the right molecules to solve complex problems in drug discovery.
UK biotech Relation Therapeutics, which deploys computation and experimentation to drug discovery, has announced two multi-program strategic collaborations with UK biopharma GSK. The collaborations will focus on the identification and validation of novel therapeutic targets for fibrotic diseases and osteoarthritis. These debilitating diseases affect millions of patients worldwide and represent areas of significant unmet medical need. Under the terms of both agreements, Relation will receive a total upfront payment from GSK of $45m. In addition, Relation will be eligible to receive success-based collaboration payments of up to $63m, as well as potential preclinical, development, commercial and sales milestone payments averaging $200m per target across both deals, along with tiered royalties on net sales of products.
Candid Therapeutics, a US clinical-stage biotech focused on advancing T-cell engagers for autoimmune diseases, and EpimAb Biotherapeutics, a Chinese clinical-stage biopharma specialising in the discovery and development of multi-specific antibodies for diseases with high unmet need, have entered a strategic research collaboration to discover and develop novel T-cell Engager programme candidates for various autoimmune indications. Under the agreement, EpimAb is entitled to an upfront payment, and development and sales milestones totalling over $1bn, assuming multiple drug candidates are advanced through commercialisation, as well as royalties on net sales. Candid has exclusive worldwide rights to develop and commercialise programmes discovered under the collaboration.
German drug discovery and development company Evotec SE has announced that its translational drug discovery accelerator LAB eN², which it launched with Novo Nordisk, and which aims to nurture early research from academic institutions into novel therapeutics, has selected its first three projects to move forward in the program from US institutions Boston University, Harvard University in collaboration with Mass General Brigham, and Joslin Diabetes Center. LAB eN² is also expanding to include five additional US academic institutions: Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston University, Johns Hopkins University, Joslin Diabetes Center, and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
The UK has joined the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) as a fully-fledged member, potentially boosting the UK economy by £2bn/year. CPTPP is a major trade bloc whose members – Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and now the UK – have a combined GDP of £12tn.
US clinical-stage biopharma NGM Biopharmaceuticals and US early-stage venture capital firm KdT Ventures have signed a worldwide license agreement for NGM313, a Phase 2-ready FGFR1c/β-Klotho receptor complex agonistic antibody. KdT Ventures has formed a company (NewCo) to develop NGM313 in a rare disease, representing the first non-metabolic indication for which NGM313 will be evaluated. Under the agreement, NGM Bio will provide a worldwide exclusive license to NewCo for research, development and commercialisation of NGM313. NGM Bio will receive equity in NewCo, an upfront payment and potential development, regulatory and sales milestone payments of up to $608m and tiered royalties on net sales.
US pharma AbbVie and US biotech Nimble Therapeutics have announced a $200m agreement under which AbbVie will acquire Nimble, including its lead asset, an investigational oral peptide IL23R inhibitor in preclinical development for the treatment of psoriasis, and a pipeline of other novel oral peptide candidates with potential across several autoimmune diseases. Additionally, AbbVie will acquire Nimble’s peptide synthesis, screening and optimisation platform, which uses proprietary technology to help drive rapid discovery and optimisation of peptide candidates for a range of targets.
Sentinal4D, a UK spinout company from The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), UK, has closed its first round of funding and appointed its foundational leadership team. The company aims to accelerate drug discovery/development to target drugs to patients, powered via patented AI-driven methods for personalised therapeutics, with a focus on oncology. The know-how in Sentinal4D is built on expertise developed in the lab of Professor Chris Bakal at the ICR. Bakal, an expert in the role of cell shape in cancer, will be Sentinal4D’s CSO. The company’s approach involves high-throughput 3D imaging of cancer models pre- and post-therapeutic intervention, a proprietary AI-based 3D computer vision model, and integration with multimodal data.
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