Lonza is to expand its Early Development Services (EDS) offering into North America with a new, laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Covering nearly 1,600 m², this will begin operations in May. No details were given on the expenditure involved.

Like the company’s other EDS lab in Cambridge, UK, the new lab will offer early in silico non-GMP protein expression and in vitro immunosafety assessment services. These will mainly be delivered to the preclinical stage small- to mid-sized biotechs around the Boston area.

Jim Bralsford, industry and solutions marketing at Kinaxis, addresses how advanced analytic and planning techniques can help the industry in challenging times

Lanxess has announced the development of the Product Carbon Footprint Engine, which takes data from its various business units and automatically calculates cradle-to-gate greenhouse gas emissions for their products. This includes production, product-specific emissions related to raw materials, energy, operating materials, and transport and emissions from waste disposal.

Merck KGaA has broken ground for a new production facility on a 150,000 m² site for its Semiconductor Solutions business at Kaohsiung, Taiwan. It will produce speciality gases and semiconductor materials for thin film and patterning from 2025 onwards.

Semiconductor Solutions has been designated as one Merck’s ‘Big 3’ growth drivers. It forms part of the Electronics business sector, which started its ‘Level Up’ growth programme in 2021 with the aim of investing “significantly more than €3 billion” in innovations and capacity expansion projects by 2025.

Sumitomo Chemical, Maruzen Petrochemical and Mitsui Chemicals have agreed to study the feasibility of collaborative projects to achieve carbon neutrality at the Keiyo Coastal Industrial Complex in Chiba. This is part of climate change targets all three have developed individually.

The initiative will mainly comprise measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as diversifying feedstocks, using biomass, new chemical recycling and material recycling technologies, converting to new kinds of fuels and the renewal of associated infrastructure.

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has published a proposed restriction of around 10,000 per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) on its website. Its scientific committees for Risk Assessment (RAC) and Socio-Economic Analysis (SEAC) will now start evaluating the proposal.

This followed three years of investigations by the national authorities of Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. In a report submitted to ECHA on 13 January, they concluded that the risks from PFAS are not adequately controlled and should therefore be restricted.

Univar Solutions has acquired two regional distributors of speciality chemicals in quick succession, the ChemSol Group in Latin America coming shortly after Kale Kimya in Turkey. In both cases, terms were not disclosed and completion is expected within Q1. Univar said that the buys will enhance both its regional footprint and its formulation and commercial offering in key growth markets.