Solvay has announced the completion of expansion of its China Research & Innovation (R&I) Centre in the Solvay Shanghai Technology Park with the inauguration of the ‘Magnolia’ research building. The company also recently opened its Material Application & Development Lab in Shanghai. In all, Solvay has spent about €500,000 at the R&I hub since 1995. The new building features a pilot hall for advanced materials applications, an automation & robotics lab and purpose-built spaces customised for both industrial applications and consumer goods research.

EuroAPI has agreed to acquire BianoGMP, a CDMO focused on small-scale, early-stage oligonucleotides, for about €10 million. The deal is expected to close in Q4. Created in 2017 by Professor Tobias Pöhlmann and Dr Rolf Günther, Biano is based in Gera, Germany, with a client base in Europe and Asia.

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has amended the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) Regulation, EU 64/2012, to add 27 pesticides and eight industrial chemicals into Annex I, bringing the total to 295. As a result, EU exporters are now required to notify their intentions to export them from 1 November onwards.

CDMO Almac Group has held a groundbreaking ceremony for a $65 million expansion project on its North American headquarters campus in Souderton, Pennsylvania. This comes just after the company announced record breaking financial results and confirmed that its global workforce has reached 7,000.

Levaco Chemicals, a manufacturer of speciality chemicals and additives based at Chempark Leverkusen in Germany, has completed setting up a commcercial subsidiary in Brazil. The creation of a sales and logistics hub there “is already in full swing”, the company said.

Levaco, a Lanxess and Tanatex spin-off, has been already been active for several years in Brazil and sees particularly strong potential in the agrochemicals and food chemicals sectors. It has now installed a warehouse in São Paolo in order to guarantee imports and make deliveries more efficiently.

CRO Inotiv has completed the sale of its business in Israel, which it described as part of the site optimisation plan for its Research Models & Services segment that it launched last year. The buyer was not named. Further assets remain for sale, which have been closed as part of the process.

Amyris and some of its US domestic subsidiaries have begun voluntary Chapter 11 proceedings in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware as part of an operational and financial restructuring. This process does not affect its subsidiaries outside the USA.