Chemistry World Blog

India investing big in clean energy – Merck strikes deal with Threshold – And Valeant buys Probiotica

PHARMACEUTICAL – The news that UK pharma giant AstraZeneca is to cut a further 7300 jobs is not a sign that the UK pharma industry is at risk, according to the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI). ‘AstraZeneca has a long history of investment as a big employer and contributor to the economy as well as the progress of innovation in life sciences,’ it said in response to the announcement. ‘That will continue.’ It added that the industry had ‘moved beyond purchaser and seller transactional relationships’ and that the UK government has done much to encourage investment – but that it needs to follow through on recent commitments.

GREENTECH – Investment in clean energy projects in India hit $10.3 billion (£6.5 billion) in 2011 representing a 52% increase compared with the previous year, according to information from data analysis firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The growth was driven by a ‘seven-fold’ increase in funding for grid connected solar projects: from $600 million in 2010 to $4.2 billion in 2011. The analysts add that there is room for further expansion: ‘In 2011, India accounted for 4% of global investment in clean energy’.

CHEMICAL – German chemical giant BASF says that the value of its agrichemical pipeline has increased by €400 million (£330 million) to €2.8 billion. The growth has come from seed treatment fungicide F500 (pyraclostrobin), for protecting soybeans, corn and cereals, which the company expects to generate peak annual sales of sales of €1 billion. The pipeline also includes Xemium, a carboxamide fungicide to be launched in 2012 and used as a seed treatment for protecting crops from a wide range of pathogens. BASF says that in 2011 it invested 10% of its agrichemical sales in R&D.

PHARMACEUTICAL – German drug maker Merck KGaA has struck a deal with US start-up Threshold Pharmaceuticals that gives Merck rights to TH-302, a small molecule anticancer drug candidate in phase III development. The candidate targets a type of tumour cell that is particularly difficult to treat – one that is able to grow and reproduce in a very low oxygen environment. Merck will pay €19 million upfront and up to €41.5 million if and when key milestones are passed.

PHARMACEUTICAL – Canadian pharma company Valeant has bought Brazilian food supplements firm Probiotica Laboratorios for R$150 million (£55 million). Valeant says that Probiotica has a 30% share of the market for food supplements, including over the counter sports nutrition products, in Brazil. Probiotica made R$80 million in sales in 2011.

Andrew Turley

The sleepy secret secreted by the opium poppy has brought pain relief to millions. But just as it’s helped to save lives, it’s also responsible for taking them. Simon Cotton tells the tale of the addictive analgesic, morphine, in this week’s Chemistry in its element podcast.

In the February podcast, we’re all about nanoparticles: they clean up blood, they can listen to cellular noises, they get rid of unwanted pests and they worm their way into the environment. Plus, we learn that fluorinated chemicals might be making their way into our food and discuss the unusual case of hip replacements that produce their own lubricant.

Eastman buys Solutia – Drug company pact to target neglected diseases – And Pfizer birth control pill recall

CHEMICAL – US chemical company Eastman has bought Solutia for $4.7 billion (£3 billion). The move will strengthen Eastman’s presence in emerging markets, particularly the Asia Pacific market. It will also save the two companies $100 million per year through ‘cost synergies’. Solutia was spun off from agrichemical giant Monsanto in 1997. It employs 3400 people in the production of a wide range of chemical products, including synthetic rubber, polymers and coatings.

PHARMACEUTICAL – A group of 13 pharma companies, three national governments and several global health organisations has come together to target 10 neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) with $785 million in R&D funding. The group aims to ‘accelerate progress toward eliminating or controlling 10 neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) by the end of the decade’. It includes the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which will contribute $363 million over five years.

PHARMACEUTICAL – Pfizer is to recall hundreds of packs of birth control pills after it discovered a ‘packaging error’ that could leave women ‘without adequate contraception and at risk of unintended pregnancy’. The recall affects 28 lots of norgestrel and ethinyl estradiol pills. The company says that the error does not pose any immediate health risks.

CHEMICAL – Netherlands life and material sciences company DSM has signed a deal with ethanol manufacturer Poet to create a $250 million joint venture. The new entity, Poet–DSM Advanced Biofuels, will start producing cellulosic ethanol from corn crop residue using enzyme hydrolysis followed by fermentation in the second half of 2013. The plant will have the capacity to produce 25 million gallons per year. The two parent companies will each have a 50% stake in it.

CHEMICAL – Swiss speciality chemical company Clariant has developed a chemical process for tanning leather that it says uses 80% less salt and 50% less water than traditional tanning processes making it simpler, safer and more environmentally friendly. The company says it represents the first ‘fundamental’ advance in tanning for 125 years. The EasyWhite Tan process is suitable for shoe upper leather and automotive upholstery, which is currently dependent on chrome-free aldehyde processes. It is based on an ‘organic self-reactive compound’ developed by Clariant.

GREENTECH – Danish industrial enzymes company Novozymes is to collaborate with Indian start-up Sea6 Energy on enzymes for making fuel ethanol, fine chemicals and proteins from seaweed. Sea6 specialises in growing seaweed offshore in large quantities with low costs. According to Novozymes, seaweed represents an attractive source of raw materials because more than half of its dry mass is sugar. Furthermore, it grows fast, doesn’t need irrigation or fertiliser and doesn’t take up arable land.

Andrew Turley

29 January 2011: Have something to say about an article you’ve read on Chemistry World this week? Leave your comments below…

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US approves skin treatment – Amgen buys Micromet for $1.16bn – And Dow enters carbon fibre joint venture (more…)

Somewhere in a dim and distant chemistry lesson we were first introduced to the atom. We learned that it has a nucleus (a bit like the sun) and that around the nucleus, dutifully obeying classical mechanics, orbited the electrons (much like the planets). The simplicity of the idea seduced even the great Niels Bohr. Everything seemed so perfect, so beautifully inter-related: from the atomic to the cosmic, the universe resonated with harmonious similitude. But, of course, it couldn’t last. (more…)

In this week’s Chemistry in its element podcast, Duncan McMillan breathes life into carbon monoxide: a silent killer whose calling card is the ironically healthy hue of its victims. But, as Duncan explains, these days canary-based CO detectors are a thing of the past and we’re even learning that CO can be helpful to us, as well as harmful.

Alnylam cuts one third of workforce – New Novo Nordisk diabetes R&D centre – And Georgia Gulf spurns $1.1 bn takeover bid (more…)

Even before it was published, the arsenic life story (about a microorganism that uses the toxic element arsenic instead of phosphorus to live) was causing controversy. But while many people went back and forth with criticisms, Rosie Redfield has been trying to repeat Wolfe-Simon’s experiments, and chronicling them in her blog.

This isn’t the first ‘peer-review by blog’, as our reader’s might remember from 2009. But following the blog has been both incredibly interesting and a wonderful reminder to me of the ‘joys’ of lab work. Open notebook science is still in it’s infancy, but Redfield is using her blog to document both her arsenic experiments and the other work her lab is doing, and even introduces experiments suggested by commenters.

Anyhow, it now looks like there’s just about enough evidence to refute the arsenic life paper, and so Redfield is writing it up.

I’ve loved following the story, but I think it will also be interesting to see what happens next. Will Redfield’s paper be accepted? Or will the ‘prior publication’ of data a problem. And if the paper is accepted, will Wolfe-Simon’s be retracted. Whatever the outcome, these are interesting times for scientific publication.

Laura Howes