Multinational chemicals giant, Dow Chemical Company and Japan’s Shin-Etsu Chemical Company are investing in their silicones franchises.

Dow’s investment plans include a series of incremental siloxane debottlenecking and efficiency improvement projects over the next three years to increase production at its manufacturing facilities around the world. It will also build a new hydroxyl functional siloxane polymer plant in Carrollton, Kentucky, US, which will increase Dow’s polymer capacity in the US by 65%. 

Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) has started the construction of a new production facility for innovative drugs. The new Solids Launch facility will focus on development activities for drugs in tablet form and manufacture them for worldwide market launches. 

The research-driven pharmaceutical company is investing €85 million (US$99.3 million) in Ingelheim, focusing on modern and flexible production.

Global speciality chemicals company Clariant has announced an updated strategy for its speciality chemicals segment, alongside a collaboration with SABIC on high performance materials. 

By 2021, it will combine its Additives and high value Masterbatches (colour, high temperature resins and health care) businesses into a High Performance Materials division, with parts of SABIC’s Specialties business. It will also divest its remaining Plastics & Coatings Business, including Pigments, standard Masterbatches and Medical Specialties. 

Canadian botanical extractions company, Mazza Innovation, has signed an exclusive, long-term agreement to supply global chemicals giant, BASF, with specific plant extracts to develop new solutions for cosmetic applications. The company produces the plant extracts using its patented PhytoClean technology, a water-based extraction method that concentrates bioactives in an eco-friendly way. 

One of the world’s largest polymer companies, Covestro, is planning to build its own chlorine production plant in Tarragona, Spain, which will use a more sustainable process: oxygen-depolarised cathode (ODC) technology, which consumes around a quarter less energy than the conventional method. The company is building the first industrial-scale plant based solely on this technology at its location in Spain, expected to begin in the first half of 2019. 

BASF has begun the registration process in the EU and Australia for two new herbicides that it says have demonstrated excellent performance against a broad range of difficult-to- control grasses and broadleaf weeds. 

Luximo, which is being registered in the EU and Australia, has an active ingredient that provides pre-emergence, residual control against a broad range of grasses, including blackgrass and ryegrass in winter cereals. The molecule boasts a novel mode of action (MoA) to control grasses that have developed resistance. 

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is reorganising its company into three businesses to help the company “achieve its growth potential”. 

A science-based Innovative Medicines business will now include biosimilars and a new hospital business unit for anti-infectives and sterile injectables. These units possess significant therapeutic area expertise in the medical, commercial and patient experience domains and will provide a strong commercialisation platform for these medicines.