Following a review over the past few months of its of its manufacturing capacity relative to customer needs and market trends across its product portfolio, Veranova’s Macfarlan Smith subsidiary has announced a proposal to close its facility at Newbie, near Annan in Scotland. It will now conduct statutory consultation requirements under UK law.

CEO Niek Stapel said: “Every effort has been made to avoid proposing the closure of the plant. This was a difficult decision to make which in no way reflects the performance or commitment of our colleagues at Annan.”

Within the Restrictions Roadmap under the EU’s Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, ECHA has released its Regulatory Strategy for Flame Retardants (FRs). This refers mainly to halogenated FRs and organophosphorus-based FRs, which make up about 70% of the organic FR market.

The strategy identified aromatic brominated FEs (BFRs) as candidates for EU-wide restriction on five classes of aromatic BFRs that are already or will be confirmed to be persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic, or very persistent and very bioaccumulative, or identified as substances of very high concern.

CDMO Curia is to collaborate with Corning’s Advanced-Flow Reactor (AFR) team to expand and accelerate continuous flow development and manufacturing for the chemical and biopharmaceutical industries.  This includes installing Corning’s G1 production system (pictured), designed for the continuous industrial production of APIs at Curia’s Albany facility.

Private equity giant Apollo has agreed to acquire the majority of Univar Solutions in an all-cash deal that values the company at about $8.1 billion. There is also an unspecified minority investment from a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

Shareholders will receive $36.15/share in cash, which represents a 20.6% premium to the company's undisturbed closing stock price on 22 November 2022 or 33.6% on the volume-weighted average for the 30 trading days ending on that date.

Under a newly signed partnership, AGC Pharma Chemicals and CatSci will combine to offer the former’s expertise in GMP manufacturing from development and manufacturing through to commercial with the latter’s in chemical development, analytical development, crystallisation and solid form, pre-formulation and HPAPI capabilities.

Following two years of construction work, CDMO Siegfried has officially opened its new development centre for drug products at its sites in Barberà del Vallès and El Masnou near Barcelona. About 40 specialist scientists will work there.

The centre features laboratories and pilot capacities, including dedicated facilities for highly potent oral solid dosage forms. Siegfried said that the opening also completes the successful integration of the two sites into its network. It originally acquired them from Novartis in 2020.

Dr Anahita Khanlari, industry marketing director, chemicals, at AspenTech, looks at how digitalisation can expedite the journey towards circularity