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.
Brenntag has revealed that it is collaborating with Chicago-based Project44 to create a platform via which all of its global tracking data, regardless of where shipments are and what mode is being used, will be fed into a single data management system.
The project, Brenntag said, will enable it to “enhance supply chain visibility and multiple value streams such as customer track-and-trace, analytical products and cost-efficient end-to-end supply chain planning”. Project44’s platform tracks more than 1 billion shipments/year for over 1,200 global companies in multiple industries.
Lanxess and Evonik have separately signed power purchase agreements (PPAs) with energy companies Engie and EnBW respectively, under which they will increase the renewable share of their electricity needs in the coming years. The former’s PPA will see 1,400 GWh supplied to seven sites from 17 wind farms and four solar parks in Germany. Meanwhile the latter is taking an additional 50 MW from EnBW’s planned He Dreiht offshore wind farm in the North Sea over the next 15 years, in addition to 100 MW it signed to take last November.
