News

Also in the news this month….

We round up the rest of what has been happening in fine and speciality chemicals

ECHA, the European Chemicals Agency, has published a list of 2,300 phase-in substances manufactured in or imported into the EU in quantities of ≥100 tonnes/year that will be registered under REACH by the next deadline on 31 May 2013 and will update this monthly. A Lead Registrant has been named for about two thirds of these, it noted.

ECHA urged registrants to continue supplying it with the requisite information. It added that the list will also be useful for downstream users wanting to know whether the substance that they use has already been registered or is expected to be. However, the list is not linked to specific uses, so downstream users are still advised to contact their suppliers to make sure they will be covered in the Chemical Safety Assessment and Exposure Scenarios associated with a registration.

Albemarle has formed a new Electronic Materials business unit. This will supply electronic-grade metal organics to the LED, compound semiconductor and solar panel markets. This unit is one of three sub-groups, alongside Polymer Catalysts and Chemical Catalysts, in the Performance Catalyst Solutions division, which changed its name from Polyolefin and Chemical Catalyst in November 2011 to reflect its move from supplying components to finished catalyst products.

The new unit is already selling commercial quantities of ultra-high purity trimethyl gallium and trimethylgallium and will soon add trimethylaluminium and trimethylindium, all under the PureGrowth brand. These are used in metal organic chemical vapour deposition, which is used to manufacture chips for LED backlighting in displays and light bulbs. Albemarle also sells diethyl zinc for solar panels and will add dimethyl zinc shortly.

Meanwhile, Rockwood Holdings is to invest $140 million in a new 20,000 tonnes/year lithium carbonate production plant at LeNegra, near the port of Antofagasta in northern Chile. This is due onstream by the end of 2013 and will increase the company's global capacity to 50,000 tonnes/year.

Driven largely by booming demand for high purity lithium compounds for large format lithium ion batteries, Rockwood is also spending some $75 million to increase production in the US. This includes the expansion of the brine pond system at Silver Peak, Nevada, and the construction of a battery grade lithium hydroxide plant and a global technical centre at Kings Mountain, North Carolina.

Dow Corning has completed its Solar Energy Exploration & Development (SEED) R&D centre in Seneffe, Belgium. The €9 million facility includes a solar application centre and a silicone synthesis technology centre. R&D activities should start within 1H. Shortly before, the company had also completed its €30 million, 32,000 m² European distribution centre.

The new SEED facility showcases many of Dow Corning's own green technologies

SEED showcases sustainability in design, using Dow Corning technologies, notably vacuum insulation panels and structural glazed facade technology, and other forms of energy-efficient architecture, like building-integrated photovoltaics. These are mounted as sun screens in front of the windows to reduce the need for cooling in the office area, while serving as power generators.

The company said that heating and electricity costs could be 75% and 70% lower respectively than an equivalent conventional construction. In addition, an air recycling system will allow the SEED laboratories to achieve a 65% energy gain compared to conventionally designed labs, representing a saving of 290 tonnes/year of CO₂.

Also building in Belgium is lactic acid and lactates supplier Galactic, which is to invest in an innovation centre at Escanaffles. The 2,000 m² building will house laboratories and pilot facilities dedicated to the development of new applications for lactic acid and lactates for both food and non-food applications, as well as fermentation halls and chemical reactors for research on new molecules via lactochemistry.

With effect from 1 January, Solvay has created Solvay Energy Services, which it describes as "the first concrete outcome of the integration of Solvay and Rhodia". Its aim is to optimise energy costs and CO₂ emissions for both Solvay itself, which spends some €1.2 billion/year on energy and manages energy co-generation facilities with an installed production capacity equivalent to 1000 MW, and for third parties, using the expertise of both companies and Orbeo.

In addition, Solvay and the French-based industrial gases giant Air Liquide have agreed to form a global fluorine gas business joint venture, which will build, own and operate modular on-site fluorine cleaning gas units for the flat panel display and silicon thin film photovoltaic industries. Further details were not disclosed and the agreement is subject to antitrust approval

Solvay has 45 years experience in running large-scale fluorine production and its raw materials supply chain, while Air Liquide has a global infrastructure and industrial gas supply relationships with major electronics manufacturers. Strong growth is expected for fluorine as a cleaning gas, because it has no global warming potential and enables users to increase their productivity.

Meanwhile, Air Liquide's competitor Air Products has sold its Homecare business to the Linde Group for €590 million, subject to regulatory approval and employee consultation requirements. The business, which supplies oxygen-therapy, sleep-therapy and infusion-therapy services in Europe, turned over €210 million last year. Air Products chairman, president and CEO John McGlade said that it was "no longer a natural fit with our core gases business".

Executives from oxo-intermediates specialist Oxea laid the cornerstone for a new Oxea production plant, the so-called Carboxylic Acid Plant 3 at the company site in Oberhausen, Germany, on 3 February. The new unit will boost carboxylic acid production capacity by some 40% and has already led to 12 new employees being hired. The investment was mainly driven, the company said, by growing global demand for synthetic fatty acids in energy-efficient lubricant esters for 'green' refrigeration units.

Oxea is back-integrated into carboxylic acids based on its hydroformylation technologies

Emerald Kalama Chemical, a division of Emerald Performance Materials, has begun construction of a new operation to produce K-Flex non-phthalate plasticisers and coalescents at its facility in Rotterdam that it acquired from DSM in December 2010. This is scheduled to be commissioned in Q3 2012. This follows a 25% expansion and a new technical centre for K-Flex products at the main site in Kalama, Washington state.

Carbogen Amcis has acquired Creapharm Parenterals, a contract development and manufacturing organisation that specialises in liquid, semi-solid and injectable aseptic dosage forms, from France's Creapharm Group of France and has changed its name to Carbogen Amcis SAS. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The new capabilities Creapharm brings include the formulation of new products and optimization of existing formulation, lyophilisation cycles, the production of pre-clinical and clinical batches of  parenterals, aseptic process validation, GMP development of injectables in liquid or freeze-dried forms and aseptic filling in vials, syringes, cartridges and infusion bags.

Most of these relate to early phase development projects and niche-scale commercial products, as does Carbogen Amcis itself. Creapharm Parenterals employs 16 at an AFSSAPS-inspected GMP manufacturing site in Riom. Since its establishment in 2000, it has produced more than 300 batches of investigational medicinal products.

Separately, Carbogen Amcis's owner the Dishman Group has confirmed reports that it is in advanced talks with a prospective buyer for its API facility at the Shanghai Chemical Industry Park. Dishman has spent some $20 million on the plant since 2007, hoping to supply Category III high potency APIs to Europe and the US but has failed to secure Chinese SFDA approval in the timeframe it had hoped for.

The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has granted Ampac Fine Chemicals (AFC) registration as a manufacturer of controlled substances. AFC added it expects "significant growth" in this field. Beginning the manufacture controlled substances was made possible enabled by a commercial arrangement with a large, unnamed pharmaceuticals company

This all follows recent plant upgrades at AFC's main site in Rancho Cordova, California, expanding its capabilities to include commercial-scale manufacturing of Schedule II intermediates and APIs for controlled substances to GMP standards. These included the safe running of hydrogenations and hazardous chemical processes, while controlling reactants at an operator exposure limit down to 0.5 micrograms/m³.

Also in this field, Cambrex has developed and validated the production of the highly potent controlled substances Sufentanil and Sufentanil Citrate at its site in Charles City, Iowa, including micronised Sufentanil Citrate. The firm has now begun begin supplying commercial quantities of both and could supply the total US requirement. The process was based on patented technology for the manufacture of Fentanyl and derivatives, which Cambrex has been manufacturing since 2006.

Many companies are adding to their HPAI capabilities as demand grows

OmniChem, meanwhile, has broken ground at the manufacturing site of Granules OmniChem, its joint venture with Granules India in Vizag, Andhra Pradesh state. This will have capacity of about 112 m³ and represents a $24 million investment. It will make APIs and intermediates, mainly for new customers at first.

The company also expects to complete a highly potent APIs (HPAIs) facility at its Wetteren site in Belgium shortly. This will increase capacity for Class 5 HPAIs by adding 11,200 litres and two new production lines with vessels of 1,600 and 4,000 litres, plus large-scale isolation and powder handling equipment.

Similarly, Aesica will upgrade its API facilities, enabling it to manufacture high potency APIs to SafeBridge Category 3 at commercial scales of 1-200 kg. This follows the opening of a new purpose-built high potency facility for formulated products at its site at Queenborough, near London. The company plans further investment in 2013 to produce batch sizes up to 600 kg.

Almac has opened a new €3.6 million building at its Craigavon headquarters in Northern Ireland. This covers about 2,800 m² and will house some 150 staff from the Clinical Services business unit, including clinical project managers and co-ordinators. Separately, Almac's Sciences business unit is to manufacture MGB Biopharma's lead gram-positive antibacterial compound MGB-BP3, a DNA minor groove binder that is currently in pre-clinical development, with IND filing targeted for Q3.

Sigma-Aldrich has acquired BioReliance, a supplier of biopharmaceutical testing services, from Avista Capital Partners for $350 million. This will expand the firm's specialised services platform with the addition of QA/QC testing for the quality and integrity of biological drugs at every stage. BioReliance, which turned over $110 million last year, is headquartered in Rockville, Maryland with two operations in Scotland and sales offices in Tokyo and Bangalore. It employs over 650 people.

China's Sinochem Group and DSM, which formed a global anti-infectives joint venture called DSM Sinochem Pharmaceuticals (DSP) last August, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to "further explore cooperation opportunities in the field of biotechnology". This came shortly after the groundbreaking ceremony for DSP's newest facility in Zibo, Shandong province, which will develop semi-synthetic cephalosporins using proprietary biotechnology.

 

The DSM-Sinochem agreement was signed during a high level meeting in China in January

DSM Pharmaceutical Products, meanwhile, has agreed to sell eight unnamed APIs made by Indoco Remedies of India. This is said to be in keeping with the strategy DSM announced in 2010 of seeking more manufacturing and supply partners in Asia, of which the collaboration with Sinochem is the most important example to date.

PolyTherics, which supplies proprietary conjugation technologies to attach polymers, mainly PEG, to specific sites on proteins and peptides to extend their duration of action or to produce antibody drug conjugates for delivery of imaging agents or cytotoxic drugs to target cells, has acquired its UK compatriot, Warwick Effect Polymers (WEP). This, it said, would give it "broader technology capabilities".

WEP offers speciality biopolymers to modify biological products, notably PolyPEG, a low viscosity comb polymer for extending the duration of action of biopharmaceuticals, especially high concentration protein products, and GlycoPol, a glycopolymer for targeting the delivery of drugs to specific glycan receptors on cells. Both are based on the work of Professor David Haddleton of the University of Warwick.

Also in the UK, CRO/CMO Molecular Profiles has begun construction of a €10 million GMP manufacturing facility in Nottingham. Due open in late 2012, this will add six new GMP suites, new laboratories and a clinical packing suite, enabling the firm to cover Phase I and II clinical trial volumes of up to 30 kg. It will also feature the manufacture of highly potent compounds up to OEB 4 level. The plant is designed to handle solid, liquid, semi-solid and inhaled dosage forms.

Finally, Illinois Tool Works (ITW), the US-based Fortune 200 diversified industrial manufacturer that already owns Panreac Química, has acquired AppliChem, a German supplier of fine chemicals and biochemical products. Applichem will become part of ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids and will be integrated into the Panreac business platform. The joint CEOs, Drs Markus Frascher and Johannes Oeler, will stay on.

AppliChem employs about 130 people at its main laboratory in Darmstadt, an office in Denmark and subsidiaries in the US and Singapore. About 50% of its products are exported. It has expanded from reference standards for environmental analysis to services related to chemical products and custom synthesis of organic and inorganic compounds under the BioChemica brand name and the Chemica brand of basic chemicals.

 

 

From Online Issue: February 2012