Swedish chemical company Perstorp has added new corporate sustainability targets for water and waste to its sustainability strategy. These comprise 30% absolute reductions of freshwater consumption and of both hazardous waste and non-hazardous waste directed to disposal by 2030 from a 2019 baseline.
Chemanol, a Saudi producer of methanol chemicals, has signed a joint venture pact with its compatriot Global Company for Downstream Industries (GDI) to establish a 60-40 joint venture (JV) to produce speciality chemicals. The company aims to establish itself as a major player in this field in the region.
Croda International has bought Solus Biotech from Korea’s Solus Advanced Materials for about $277 million, subject to regulatory approval. Solus Biotech makes biotechnology-derived beauty actives, notably naturally derived powder ceramides and GMP phospholipids for both pharmaceutical and cosmetic applications. Both are high-growth markets, with the number of new personal care products containing ceramides doubling over the last five years.
Solenis has completed the acquisition of Lima-based Grand Invest Group, including all its production assets. This is the fifth add-on acquisition since Platinum Equity acquired Solenis itself in 2021, with more potentially to come. Terms were not disclosed.
Symrise has made an unspecified investment to take a minority stake in Israeli biotech Synergio, with the option of owning a majority in future. Financial terms are not being disclosed.
Based in Jerusalem, Synergio specialises in developing natural antimicrobial combinations from plants for product protection, using a data-driven, biochemistry-based, computational platform. Symrise is already a major player in this field within the personal care sector and sees growth opportunities in working together with Synergio.
French CDMO Seqens has opened its $5 million ‘Seqens Boston R&D Center’ in Devens, Massachusetts, in place of an older one. Covering 14,00 m2, this will be the North American flagship for its ten-strong global network of R&D centres, helping to take projects through all the stages of development to commercialisation.
Subject to usual closing conditions, Japan’s Sumitomo Chemical is to acquire FBSciences, a US-based firm which makes naturally-derived biostimulants and biopesticides via proprietary methods. No financial terms or timelines have been disclosed.
Sumitomo values the biorationals market, the class of products in which biostimulants form the largest part at about $10 billion. This is about 10% of the size of the conventional agrochemicals market, but it has been enjoying far stronger growth.
