Business briefing

Borealis, Borouge, and Nova to combine Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and the Austrian refiner OMV are combining their petrochemical holdings to form Borouge Group International, which will be the fourth-largest polyolefins producer in the world, with 13.6 million metric tons of capacity. The new firm will merge European chemical maker Borealis, which is owned 75% by OMV and 25% by ADNOC, with Borouge, a United Arab Emirates polyolefins maker owned by 36% by Borealis and 54% by ADNOC. In addition, ADNOC will buy Canada’s Nova Chemicals for $13.4 billion, including debt, from the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment. Nova will be contributed to the combined company when it is formed in 2026. The new firm will also include Borouge 4, a $7.5 billion ethylene cracker complex under construction in Abu Dhabi. Borealis, Borouge, and Nova have a total of about $17 billion in annual sales, based on 2023 results, and about 11,000 employees. OMV and ADNOC will each own about 47% of the new firm, which will also be listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange. ADNOC has been growing through acquisitions; in October, it agreed to buy the German polyurethane chemical maker Covestro for $16.3 billion.—ALEX TULLO LyondellBasell to build metathesis plant LyondellBasell Industries has approved a project to build a new metathesis unit at its Channelview, Texas, complex to make propylene from ethylene. Construction will begin on the plant, which will have 400,000 metric tons of capacity, later this year. LyondellBasell expects to start up the plant in 2028. The company has been making propylene via metathesis at Channelview since the mid-1980s. It had considered building a metathesis unit in the early 2010s but shelved the project out of concerns about propylene overcapacity. LyondellBasell uses propylene to make polypropylene and propylene oxide. It is currently shutting down a refinery in Houston that provided it with propylene.—ALEX TULLO Evonik builds membrane pilot plant Evonik Industries has begun building a pilot plant in Marl, Germany, for making a novel polymer-based anion-exchange membrane for hydrogen-generating water electrolyzers. Evonik is investing low-double-digit millions of dollars in the plant, which is slated to begin operating at year-end. It will have an annual capacity to produce enough membranes for 2.5 GW of electrolysis capacity. The membrane allows anions to pass through it while it remains impermeable to gases—including hydrogen—generated during electrolysis.—ALEX SCOTT Cornerstone to close acrylonitrile facility Cornerstone Chemical says it will mothball its acrylonitrile plant in Waggaman, Louisiana, because of oversupplied global markets and increasing raw material costs for the fiber and polymer intermediate. Cornerstone continues to produce melamine and sulfuric acid at the site, which it calls Cornerstone Energy Park. The park will be the home of a $500 million facility that the Japanese firm Ube plans to build to make dimethyl carbonate and ethyl methyl carbonate, solvents used in lithium-ion batteries.—MICHAEL MCCOY Thermo Fisher to buy filtration unit Thermo Fisher Scientific has agreed to buy a purification and filtration business from Solventum, the health-care company that spun off from 3M in 2024, for $4.1 billion. The filtration unit employs about 2,500 people and had $1 billion in revenue last year. The sale leaves Solventum focused on health informatics and products for wound and oral care. In a press release, Thermo Fisher CEO Marc Casper says that the acquisition will work well with Thermo’s portfolio of cell culture media and single-use fermentation equipment serving the bioprocessing industry, especially for pharmaceutical applications.—CRAIG BETTENHAUSEN India’s Granules will acquire Senn Granules India has agreed to acquire Senn Chemicals, a Swiss contract manufacturer. The deal will mark Granule’s entry into the manufacturing of peptides used in therapeutics such as glucagon-like peptide-1 antidiabetic and weight-loss drugs. Senn holds expertise in liquid- and solid-phase peptide synthesis, Granules says. The acquisition, which the Indian media reported is worth $22.3 million, is expected to close in the first half of this year.—AAYUSHI PRATAP Lilly to increase drug manufacturing in US Amid rising demand for weight-loss and antidiabetic drugs, Eli Lilly and Company plans to invest $27 billion to build four new manufacturing sites in the US. The move comes as President Donald J. Trump calls for reshoring manufacturing. Three of the sites will focus on making drug ingredients, while the fourth will be dedicated to future injectable therapies, Lilly says. The four will create more than 3,000 jobs, including those for scientists, engineers, and lab technicians, the company adds. The latest announcement brings Lilly’s domestic manufacturing investments since 2020 to over $50 billion.—AAYUSHI PRATAP AbbVie licenses weight-loss candidate Every big and small pharma company is rushing into the weight-loss market, and AbbVie is no exception. The US pharmaceutical giant has licensed the Danish company Gubra’s weight-loss molecule, GUB014295, for $350 million. The molecule, which is being tested in Phase 1 clinical trials, is an analog of amylin, a hormone known to regulate blood sugar levels and appetite. Under the agreement, AbbVie will lead GUB014295’s development and commercialization activities globally.—AAYUSHI PRATAP Syngenta will acquire biologicals The agricultural technology firm Syngenta is acquiring a repository of natural products and genetic strains for agricultural use from Novartis. That firm’s natural products research team will move to Syngenta, which will lease a pilot-scale fermentation plant in Switzerland from Novartis. In turn, Novartis will retain the right to commercialize pharmaceutical leads from this repository. Syngenta started up a biologicals production facility in South Carolina last October. It also recently announced collaborations with Ginkgo Bioworks, Provivi, and other companies for biological products.—MATT BLOIS Ignota raises funds to repurpose failed drugs Ignota Labs has raised almost $7 million toward rescuing failed drugs with artificial intelligence. Many drug candidates fail because of side effects and toxicities, but Ignota says its SafePath platform applies deep learning, bioinformatics, and cheminformatics to determine why failed drug candidates are toxic and to identify possible solutions. The Cambridge, England–based start-up says this approach could revive candidates that had been discarded. It licensed a PDE9A inhibitor—its first candidate to be rehabilitated—in December 2024.—SARAH BRANER Fuse Vectors gets financing for AAVs The Danish start-up Fuse Vectors has received $5.2 million in preseed financing. The company is developing a cell-free platform for the assembly of adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors used in gene therapy. The platform dramatically reduces the time required to fill AAV capsids—a major bottleneck in developing gene therapies, co-CEO Jordan Turnbull says. The company says its technology allows partners to test different combinations of AAV capsid serotypes and payloads at a scale that was previously not possible.—MAX BARNHART Lilly enters Magnet’s field Magnet Biomedicine has entered a partnership and licensing agreement with pharma giant Eli Lilly and Company to fight cancer with molecular glues. Magnet will receive an up-front payment of $40 million and could get up to $1.25 billion in milestone payments, as well as royalties. Magnet’s TrueGlue platform screens small molecules for their potential to act as molecular glues, which link two proteins that would not interact under normal circumstances.—SARAH BRANER Business Roundup BASF is investing tens of millions of dollars to build an alcoholates plant at its site in Ludwigshafen, Germany. Due to open in 2027, the plant will make sodium methylate and potassium methylate—chemicals used in the production of agrochemicals, biodiesel, and pharmaceuticals. Arkema plans to spend $20 million to expand polyvinylidene fluoride capacity by 15% in Calvert City, Kentucky. The company says the new capacity will support increased demand for the material in lithium-ion batteries, semiconductor manufacturing, and cables. Lone Star Funds, a private equity firm, will acquire the specialty chemical and high-performance polymer businesses of Italy’s Radici Group for an undisclosed sum. The businesses produce nylon intermediates, as well as nylon and polyester. L’Oréal has opened a $160 million R&D center in Clark, New Jersey. The facility employs more than 600 scientists and engineers working on new personal care ingredients and products. Celanese and Teijin are closing a Mylar Specialty Films joint venture in Luxembourg. Celanese says it is trying to exit higher-cost facilities. Idemitsu Kosan is planning a $143 million facility in Japan to produce lithium sulfide, an intermediate needed to make electrolytes for solid-state batteries. The firm started construction on a pilot plant in 2024 and hopes the full-scale facility will be operational in 2027. Vivici has raised $35 million in series A funding to expand sales and production of a fermentation-derived version of the dairy protein β-lactoglobulin. The firm also plans to launch a version of the dairy protein lactoferrin produced via fermentation.