Innovate UK, the UK’s national innovation agency, has announced an investment of over £14m across 29 innovative projects to help make the UK’s medicines manufacturing sector more sustainable through circularity (reuse and recycling of materials within manufacturing processes); green chemistry (developing processes that reduce the use of hazardous substances and minimise environmental impact); and productivity and resource efficiency (reducing energy and resource use). The projects form part of the Sustainable Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Programme (SMMIP), delivered in partnership with the UK Government’s Department of Health and Social Care.
US cell and gene therapy company 2seventy bio has announced a definitive merger agreement under which US pharma Bristol Myers Squibb will acquire all of the outstanding shares of 2seventy bio in an all-cash transaction for a total equity value of approximately $286m.
Axplora, a German company specialising in antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) manufacturing, the custom development and upscaling of complex API production processes and the production of small molecule APIs for the generic industry, is launching a payload manufacturing workshop at its site in Le Mans, France. This expansion, which is part of the French Government’s France 2030 research investment program, builds on Axplora’s track record of supplying 40% of the world’s marketed ADCs, and 50% of US FDA-approved ADCs.
UK university Imperial College London has been awarded £963k as part of FULL-MAP, a major new European-funded initiative, which aims to revolutionise battery research through AI, automation and high-throughput experimentation. The project – FULLy integrated, autonomous & chemistry-agnostic Materials Acceleration Platform for sustainable batteries (FULL-MAP) – brings together leading European institutions to dramatically speed up the discovery and optimisation of next-generation battery materials.
Omani-owned chemical company OQ Chemicals has announced the start of heptanoic acid production in Oberhausen, Germany from June 2025. Heptanoic acid has uses across a variety of sectors, including food additives, tobacco essence, medicine, perfumes, oil lubricants and friction agents.
US biotech Biogen has revealed plans for a new global headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
UK speciality chemicals company Croda International has opened a new lipids manufacturing facility in Lamar, Pennsylvania, US. The 2200m2, multi-purpose facility will enhance Croda’s capabilities in producing critical components for drug delivery systems, including lipids used for delivery of nucleic acid-based therapeutics, mRNA vaccines, gene editing therapies and novel cancer treatments.
UK biotech Oxford BioTherapeutics (OBT), a clinical stage oncology company with a pipeline of immuno-oncology and ADC-based therapies, has announced a multi-year collaboration with Swiss healthcare company Roche to discover novel potentially first-in-class antibody-based therapeutics for the treatment of cancer. OBT’s recently launched enhanced proprietary OGAP-Verify discovery platform enables greater sensitivity and thus the selection of targets with improved attributes for drug development. Under the agreement, targets are identified via the OGAP-Verify platform and will be validated through the research collaboration.
UK-Swedish pharma and biotech AstraZeneca and South Korean biopharma Alteogen have entered into an exclusive license agreement for ALT-B4, a novel hyaluronidase using Hybrozyme platform technology. Under the terms of the agreement, AstraZeneca will acquire worldwide rights to use ALT-B4 to develop and commercialise subcutaneous formulations of several oncology assets. Alteogen will be responsible for the clinical and commercial supply of ALT-B4 to AstraZeneca. Subcutaneous formulations have the potential to offer many advantages, including time savings for patients, clinical staff and health systems due to shorter administration times.
German pharma Boehringer Ingelheim and US cloud-computing company Veeva, which has a focus on pharmaceutical and life sciences industry applications, have announced the launch of Boehringer’s One Medicine Platform. The platform brings together data and processes across clinical, regulatory and quality functions, enabling Boehringer to streamline its product development, optimise trial efficiency and collaboration with research sites, and accelerate the delivery of new medicines to treat currently incurable diseases.
$55bn
US pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical technologies corporation Johnson & Johnson has announced manufacturing, R&D, and technology investments of more than $55bn in the US over the next four years. This represents a 25% increase in investment compared with the previous four years.
18,800 t
The coatings division of German chemicals company BASF has expanded its production capacity for polyester and polyurethane resin at its Caojing plant in Shanghai, China. Originally established in 2015 with an annual capacity of 8,000t of polyester and polyurethane resin, the plant has now increased its capacity to 18,800tons/year – a more than twofold increase. In addition, BASF coatings is planning to enhance its electrocoat binder production through process optimisation at the Caojing site, starting in early 2026.
99%
German polymer materials manufacturer Covestro has announced significant progress towards its scope 1 climate neutrality goal for its Baytown, Texas site in the US. A newly commissioned project, known as NAUCI (Nitric Acid Unit Climate Initiative), reduces greenhouse gas emissions from the site’s Nitric Acid Unit by up to 99%, which accounts for a 60% reduction in the site’s overall scope 1 emissions. This resulted in a 195kt annual reduction of CO2e emissions.
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UK-Swedish pharma and biotech AstraZeneca has announced an investment of $2.5bn in Beijing to establish its sixth global strategic R&D centre together with major research and manufacturing agreements that will further advance life sciences in China. This investment over the next five years is part of a strategic partnership with the Beijing Municipal Government and the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area Administrative Office and includes agreements with three Chinese biotechs: Harbour BioMed, Syneron Bio, and BioKangtai. AstraZeneca expects its Beijing workforce to grow to 1,700.
The Government of Canada has announced a contribution of CA$62m to support Canadian clinical-stage genetic medicines company Entos Pharmaceuticals through the Canadian Strategic Innovation Fund, a body that provides major investments in innovative projects that will help grow Canada’s economy. This contribution will help build a CA$198.5m, 9560m2 facility providing biomanufacturing capacity and an R&D centre that will be used to produce genetic medicines with the potential to treat infections, cancer, rare diseases and neurodegenerative diseases.
MeiraGTx Holdings, a US clinical-stage genetic medicines company, has announced a broad strategic collaboration with Hologen, a UK developer of multi-modal generative AI foundation models of real-world clinical data for clinical medicine and pharmaceutical drug development. MeiraGTx and Hologen are forming a joint venture, called Hologen Neuro AI to develop AAV-GAD (adeno-associated virus-GAD) treatment of Parkinson’s disease, as well as funding earlier stage clinical programs including AAV-BDNF for genetic obesity.
Almac Group, a UK provider of pharmaceutical support services, has opened a new, state-of-the-art, £65m commercial manufacturing facility for its Almac Pharma Services subsidiary at its global headquarters in Craigavon, Northern Ireland, in the UK. The new 9300m2 facility enhances existing capabilities in commercial manufacture of oral dose treatments.
Swiss healthcare company Roche has launched the Roche Genentech Innovation Center Boston at Harvard University’s Enterprise Research Campus. The Center will serve as Roche’s cardiovascular, renal, and metabolism (CVRM) hub, establishing a significant end-to-end R&D presence in CVRM. It will also support some of Roche’s and Genentech’s efforts in AI and data science to accelerate drug discovery and development.
Germany’s largest proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyser has gone into operation at the Ludwigshafen site of German chemicals company BASF. Designed to produce zero-carbon hydrogen, the electrolyser has a connected load of 54MW and the capacity to supply up to one tonne of hydrogen every hour. Built in cooperation with German engineering company Siemens Energy, the water electrolyser is embedded in the Ludwigshafen site’s production infrastructure. A total of 72 stacks – the modules in which the electrolysis process takes place – have been installed in the system with the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 72,000t/year.
Swiss CDMO CordenPharma is investing more than €1bn over the next three years by building and expanding small, medium, and large peptide manufacturing facilities across Europe and the US. In Switzerland, CordenPharma will invest €500m to construct a greenfield site for small to large-scale peptide development and manufacturing in its Muttenz facility (Basel region). At its Colorado, US, site, expansion will target additional large-scale peptide manufacturing capacity of existing lines as well as a greenfield construction for new production areas.
Irish biopharma Jazz Pharmaceuticals and US biopharma Chimerix have entered into a definitive agreement for Jazz to acquire Chimerix for a total consideration of $935m.
Thermo Fisher Scientific, a US supplier of analytical instruments, and laboratory, pharmaceutical and biotechnology services, has announced a technology alliance agreement with the Chan Zuckerberg Institute for Advanced Biological Imaging. The agreement aims to develop new technologies to enable researchers to better visualise human cells to support scientific research. Work will include developing laser phase plate technology for cryo-electron microscopy, enhancing cellular biology imaging at high resolution.
UK speciality chemicals and sustainable technologies company Johnson Matthey (JM) and German engineering and automotive industry supplier Bosch have agreed terms to accelerate future projects together. The agreement confirms both parties’ intentions to develop and produce catalyst coated membranes (CCM) for use in fuel cell stacks. Hydrogen fuel cells are electrochemical devices that combine hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity. In operation, pure water is the only by-product, so fuel cell electric vehicles are a clean, zero-emission option. JM’s CCMs will be used in Bosch’s integrated, compact and scalable fuel cell power module for commercial vehicles, which are designed for longer distance applications.
Swiss pharma Novartis has entered into an agreement to acquire Anthos Therapeutics, a US, privately held, clinical-stage biopharma with abelacimab, a late-stage medicine in development for the prevention of stroke and systemic embolism in patients with atrial fibrillation.
UK water treatment solutions specialist Arvia Technology has announced the launch of Florenox, a range of electrochemical oxidation reactors that can destroy per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – PFAS, also known as ‘forever chemicals’. At the heart of Florenox is Nyex.3, a patent-pending advanced inert electrode material that promotes the formation of highly reactive hydroxyl radicals that are capable of breaking carbon-fluorine bonds. Unlike other technologies, Nyex.3 is fluoride resistant, offering a significant increase in lifespan for each unit.
BioClec, an Italian biotech focused on therapies for Alzheimer’s disease has been launched. Emerging from the €165m Biovelocita II accelerator program created by Sofinnova Partners, a European venture capital firm based in London, Paris and Milan, BioClec is developing novel therapies targeting microglia, the brain’s immune cells, to treat Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia.
Kashima City in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan is taking part in a six-party comprehensive partnership agreement to promote closed-loop recycling of plastic packaging. The pilot project organises each of the six partners to pass materials onto the next partner to promote the recycling of plastic through the supply chain. This is the first closed-loop recycling of packaging project in Japan that leverages the unique strengths of a local government (Kashima City), a waste collecting company (Refinverse), a chemical manufacturer (Mitsubishi Chemical), a packaging manufacturer (Toyo Seikan), a food manufacturer (Kewpie) and a supermarket (Kasumi).
German specialty chemicals manufacturer Evonik is building a pilot plant in Marl, Germany, to produce its anion exchange membrane, marketed under the name Duraion. Used in water electrolysis, these membranes support the production of green hydrogen. Once fully online, the new plant will be able to produce enough membranes each year to provide 2.5GW of electrolysis capacity for hydrogen production.
Denmark’s Novo Nordisk has signed an exclusive license agreement with China’s The United Bio-Technology (Hengqin) Co for UBT251, a triple agonist of the receptors for GLP-1, GIP and glucagon, which is in early-stage clinical development for the treatment of obesity, Type 2 diabetes and other diseases. Novo has acquired exclusive worldwide right for development, manufacture and commercialisation.
India’s Gujarat Narmeda Valley Fertilizers & Chemicals has implemented Clariant’s EnviCat N20-S catalyst for nitrous oxide abatement at its nitric acid plant. Its application has reduced N2O emissions by 44,000t/month of CO2e.
The Canadian Federal Government has partnered with Siemens Canada to establish a new battery R&D centre in Oakville, Ontario. The centre will focus on advancing battery efficiency and production methods.
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