Business Concentrates
INVESTMENT
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
Solvay divests
acetate and vinyls
Solvay will sell its business in cellulose ac-
etate tow, a fiber used to make cigarette fil-
ters, to the private equity firm Blackstone in
a deal worth $1.1 billion. The business, called
Solvay Acetow, generated nearly $600 mil-
lion in sales in 2015. It employs 1,300 work-
ers and operates plants in Brazil, France,
Germany, Russia, and the U.S. Separately,
Solvay has agreed to sell its 59% stake in the
Thai polyvinyl chloride producer Vinythai
to Asahi Glass in a deal that values the firm
at about $465 million. Solvay earlier sold its
European PVC business and is selling its
Brazilian PVC business.ALEX TULLO
SPECIALTY CHEMICALS
Edgewater buys
a pair of firms
Following on plans to purchase BASFs
inorganic specialties business, the private
equity firm Edgewater Capital Partners is
buying two specialty chemical businesses.
From Ensign-Bickford Industries, it is get-
ting DanChem Technologies, a Danville,
Va.-based contract manufacturer that
boasts the sectors largest fleet of horizon-
tal reactors, used in difficult and hazard-
ous reactions. And an Edgewater-owned
company, FAR Chemical, has acquired the
acetylacetonate business of Mackenzie
Chemicals. Mackenzie has been making
acetylacetonates, used as catalysts, curing
agents, and urethane crosslinkers, in Bush,
La., since 1977.ALEX TULLO
AGRICULTURE
Start-up gets funds
for novel protein
South Africas AgriProtein has raised
$17.5 million from investors to recycle dis-
carded food into protein for aquaculture
and other livestock businesses. AgriPro-
tein grinds up discarded food and turns it
into a paste, which is fed to larvae of the
black soldier fly. After they mature, the
larvae are separated from the waste and
processed into protein meal and oil for
animal feed. The company, which opened
18 C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | DECEMBER 12/19, 2016
Evonik builds up silica
Evonik Industries is moving into the specialty silica field with the $630 mil-
lion purchase of J.M. Huber Corp.s silica operations. Separately, Evonik
plans to build a $120 million precipitated silica plant near Charleston, S.C.,
to supply nearby tire makers with the additive. The purchase of the Huber
business will take Evonik, which now makes silica mostly for industrial
applications, into silica for consumer products such as toothpaste. With op-
erations in the U.S., China, and India, the Huber business will have sales of
about $300 million and operating income of about $60 million this year, the
companies say. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2017. The
new Charleston plant, meanwhile, will supply tire manufacturers with an ad-
ditive that can cut auto fuel consumption by up to 8%, Evonik says. It is slated
to open in 2018.MARC REISCH
a University of Oxford spin-off, raised
$21 million from Statoil Energy Ventures
and others to scale up its perovskite-based
technology. Perovskite materials share
a crystal structure that could help make
inexpensive solar cells. The firm has a
pilot line in Germany and a development
agreement with a major solar manufactur-
A black soldier fly, parent er. Separately, Swedens Exeger has raised
to protein-rich larvae. $5.5 million from the European energy
firm Fortum to scale up production of
its first plant earlier this year, says its prod- printable, dye-sensitized solar cells for
ucts compete with meal from wild-caught use in consumer electronics and build-
fish.MELODY BOMGARDNER ings.MELODY BOMGARDNER
SPECIALTY CHEMICALS INVESTMENT
Lenzing will build AkzoNobel forms
U.S. fiber plant venture in India
Lenzing, an Austrian maker of cellulosic AkzoNobel and Indias Atul will build a
fibers, plans to spend almost $300 million 32,000-metric-ton-per-year monochloro-
to build a plant in Mobile, Ala., for its Ten- acetic acid (MCAA) plant in the state of Gu-
cel brand fiber. The 90,000-metric-ton- jarat, India. Atul, which will supply chlorine
per-year facility, the largest in the world, and hydrogen to the facility, uses MCAA to
is set to open in early 2019. Tencel is used produce the herbicide 2,4-dichlorophenoxy-
in apparel, home furnishing, nonwoven, acetic acid (2,4-D). AkzoNobel is not the first
and other applications. Between the new European chemical firm to invest in Indian
plant and expansion projects in Austria MCAA production. In 2008, CABB Chem-
and England, Tencel capacity will in- icals bought a majority stake in Karnavati
crease by more than 50% by 2019, Lenzing Rayasan, currently Indias largest MCAA
says.MICHAEL MCCOY producer.JEAN-FRANOIS TREMBLAY
CREDIT: BLACKSOLDIERFLYBLOG.COM
SOLAR POWER 3-D PRINTING
Sun shines on new Chew on this:
solar technologies 3-D printed gum
Two solar-cell start-ups have raised funds Wacker Chemie, a maker of polyvinyl
from investors. Oxford Photovoltaics, acetate chewing gum bases, has devel-
 Wackers new take
on gum.
oped what it calls
the worlds first
three-dimensional
printing process
for chewing gum.
To keep from
gumming up the
works, Wacker de-
veloped a polymer
formula that can be printed in personalized
shapes using special software and hard-
ware.MARC REISCH
INORGANIC CHEMICALS
Wacker will add
pyrogenic silica
Wacker Chemie plans to spend $150 mil-
lion to build a pyrogenic silica plant at
its facility in Charleston, Tenn. Set to
open in the first half of 2019, the plant
will have annual capacity of about 13,000
metric tons and create about 50 jobs. As
raw material, Wacker will use tetrachlo-
rosilane produced as a by-product at
the Charleston sites polysilicon plant,
a $2.5 billion facility that opened earlier
this year. Wacker sites in Germany are
similarly integrated. The new product is a
high-purity silicon dioxide used in elasto-
mers, paints, food, and personal care prod-
ucts.MICHAEL MCCOY
ECONOMY
New York City spends
on life sciences
New York City will spend $500 million in
an effort to create 16,000 jobs in the life
sciences and related fields. Speaking at the
Alexandria Center, a research campus that
opened in 2011 in Manhattan, Mayor Bill de
Blasio said the plan centers on a $100 million
facility in the neighborhood or across the
East River in Long Island City, Queens. It
includes $50 million to expand operations at
nonprofit research facilities in the city and
$10 million to expand business incubators.
The city is also committing $300 million
in tax incentives in the hope of attracting
investment in commercial lab space for life
science businesses.RICK MULLIN
FOOD INGREDIENTS
Bono and The Edge
back healthy peptides
U2s Bono is a fixture of rock music and
philanthropy. Hes also an experienced
investor in technology start-ups. He and
bandmate The Edge have invested an undis-
closed amount in Nuritas, a Dublin-based
start-up that discovers peptide-based in-
gredients for use in nutraceuticals and cos-
metics. The company finds its products by
mining libraries of billions of food-derived
Two U2 members are backing the Irish
start-up Nuritas.
molecules. It looks for peptides with an-
ti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and antiag-
ing properties.MELODY BOMGARDNER
NUCLEIC ACIDS
Purdue licenses
Exicure drug
Purdue Pharma has formed a pact with
Exicure, a biotech firm developing spher-
ical nucleic acid technology, which fa-
cilitates intracellular delivery of nucleic
acids by tethering them to the surface of a
nanoparticle. In exchange for an undisclosed
payment and equity investment, Exicure will
grant Purdue rights to its lead compound,
AST-005, a topically applied treatment for
psoriasis that has completed a Phase I study.
Exicure is based on technology developed in
the labs of Northwestern University chemist
Chad Mirkin.LISA JARVIS

Business Roundup total investment in the compa-

Nantero, a Boston-area
start-up, has raised $21 mil-
lion to bring carbon-nano-
tube-based computer memory
to market in consumer elec-
tronics and other products.
The firm has raised $110 mil-
lion to date from Globespan
CREDIT: WACKER CHEMIE (GUM); NURITAS (U2)
traditional phosphoramidite
chemical methods.
Amyris will sell half of its
squalane business to the Jap-
anese specialty chemical firm
Nikkol for up to $20 million.
The two companies will then
ny to about $440 million.
Goldfinch Bio has been
launched by the venture capi-
tal firm Third Rock Ventures.
Armed with $55 million in
Series A funding, Cambridge,
Mass.-based Goldfinch will
pursue new treatments for
kidney diseases based on the
on the work of Nobel Prize
winner Shinya Yamanaka of
Kyoto University.
Ixchelsis, a U.K. start-up,
has raised $12 million from
Pfizer Ventures to advance
Phase IIb clinical trials of IX-
01, an oxytocin antagonist that
treats premature ejaculation.
IX-01 was discovered by Pfizer.

Capital Partners and others.
Molecular Assemblies,
a San Diego-based start-up
developing enzyme-based
DNA synthesis, has raised
$2.3 million in a first round of
funding from Agilent Tech-
nologies and other investors.
The firm says its biocatalyst
route is greener and makes
longer DNA sequences than
establish a cosmetic ingre-
dients joint venture. Nikkol
already distributes Amyris
products in Japan.
Oxford Nanopore Technol-
ogy, a U.K. firm that designs
portable DNA/RNA sequenc-
ers, has raised $126 million
from private investors to fund
its expansion, particularly in
Asia. The funding round brings
discoveries of its scientific
founders.
Bayer and Versant Ven-
tures have invested $225 mil-
lion to launch BlueRock
Therapeutics. The Canadian
company plans to develop
induced pluripotent stem cell
therapies for cardiovascular
and neurodegenerative disor-
ders. Its technology is based
Evotec and Forge Ther-
apeutics will develop small
molecules that block LpxC, a
Gram-negative antibacterial
target. Evotec will optimize
LpxC inhibitors discovered
using Forges metal-binding
pharmacophore library. Forge
was spun out of the labs of
University of California, San
Diego, chemist Seth Cohen.

DECEMBER 12/19, 2016 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN 19