Private equity firm Cinven has agreed to acquire Bayer’s Environmental Science Professional (ESP) business for €2.4 billion. The deal should close in Q2, subject to customary closing conditions. Bayer had originally announced plans to divest the business, which is headquartered in Cary, North Carolina, in February 2021.

ESP offers pest, disease and weed control in non-agricultural areas such as vector control, professional pest management, vegetation management, forestry, turf and ornamentals. In 2021, it employed about 800 people in over 100 countries.

Clariant, Solvay, Chemours and Novozymes have all announced plans to suspend business with Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine. They have all also pledged support for employees in the affected countries and made donations to support relief operations.

Clariant suspended operations with immediate effect. CEO Conrad Keijzer said: “Continuing to do business under these circumstances is incompatible with our purpose and values”. The company has a sales office and a laboratory in Moscow, which contribute about 2% of its sales. It also employs 146 people in Ukraine.

Chicago-based carbon capture and transformation (CCT) firm LanzaTech has announced plans to launch on the Nasdaq. This follows an agreed to combine through a business combination transaction with AMCI Acquisition, a special purpose acquisition company. Closing is expected in Q3, subject to approval by stockholders on both sides.

Lonza has completed an expansion at its API manufacturing site at Nansha, China, as part of its recent investment to expand mid-scale capacity there. This focused on extending the capabilities and capacity of development laboratories and kilo-scale cGMP manufacturing laboratories for clinical supply of HPAPIs.

Waste2Func, a European BBI-JU funded project, has been granted €6.7 million to build a technology platform. This will collect food waste from agriculture, food manufacturing, supermarkets, auctions and restaurants, and convert it via fermentation and purification into lactic acid and biosurfactants with applications in cosmetics, personal care and household care products. The project began in June 2021 and will end in November 2024, with a total budget of €13.965 million.

Sinocompound Catalysts, a supplier of advanced homogeneous catalysts and ligands based in Zhangjiagang, China, has announced production of QPhos in kilogram quantities. Hitherto, the company said, its use in process development and scale-up has been hindered by the lack of commercial-scale capacity, despite its huge potential.

Brenntag has entered the Israeli market by acquiring distributor Y.S. Ashkenazi Agencies and its subsidiary Biochem Trading. The firm is the said to be the national market leader in personal care, and food and nutrition as well as one of the largest speciality chemical distributors. Terms were not disclosed and the deal has already been completed.