CDMO Cambrex has sold its Drug Product business unit to Noramco. Terms were not disclosed. The business comprises product development, clinical and commercial manufacturing and packaging from facilities in Mirabel, Québec, and Whippany, New Jersey.

CEO Thomas Loewald described this as “the result of a strategic decision to focus on core areas of growth and investment”. The company will henceforth prioritise its drug substance and analytical testing businesses, which are based across 13 sites worldwide, including the recently acquired Snapdragon Chemistry and Q1 Scientific.

Solvay has published materials for an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting, including details of the executive leadership nominations for when it splits into two firms. The meeting will be held in Brussels on 8 December for shareholders to approve the split, which has been unanimously recommend by the board and the executive leadership.

Italian CDMO Olon Group has announced a €10 million, multi-year expansion plan for its production site in Mahad, India. This will increase its chemical synthesis capacity for intermediates and APIs by 45%, particularly for products in high demand where Olon is already the market leader.

Sergey Nozhenko, a solution expert in SAP’s chemicals industry business unit, explains how value management can help speciality chemicals businesses assess and continually improve upon the ROI of their core IT outlays

Show me the money. It seems a simple enough request – or, perhaps better, demand - but it is one that has been asked imperfectly over the decades of enterprise resource processing (ERP) system implementations in the speciality chemicals business.

During its Q4 earnings update, Ashland announced plans for a series of “portfolio optimisation actions to further strengthen the company’s resilience and improve margins and returns in this uncertain environment”. These are expected to improve adjusted EBITDA margins by about 2% and returns on net assets by 1.5-2%.

Ingevity has announced that it will close its site at DeRidder, Louisiana, by the end of 1H 2024 plus other cost reduction actions. Combined with previously announced cuts, these are expected to yield savings of $65-75 million/year from 2024 onwards.

DeRidder makes a range of products based on crude tall oil (CTO), primarily for the Industrial Specialties business. The company is seeking to transition away from CTO-based fatty acids and towards those based on soy, canola and others. This is because of the high costs of CTO as a result of demand from the biofuels market.

Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education & Research (BMBF) is to fund the Green Chem consortium in building “an ecosystem for transfer in the field of green chemistry” with up to €10 million. The 29-strong consortium is led by Covestro, Berlin-Chemie and three universities in the city, and includes regional technology clusters, private firms and foundations, among others.