Chemistry World Blog

This week, we cover the first in a new class of contraceptive pill, the first signs of a clampdown on pay for delay deals, and further cuts to plants and personnel announced by BASF.

PHARMACEUTICALS

Branded drugs’ competition-free days numbered:

Authorities in the US and Europe are to look carefully at the tactics pharmaceutical firms use to delay competition from generic versions of their branded drugs. The European Commission is to increase its scrutiny of the industry following the publication of its final report on competition in the sector, while the US Department of Justice is hardening its line on ‘pay for delay’ deals.

Merck snaps at warfarin’s heels:

Merck & Co. has signed an exclusive deal with Portola Pharmaceuticals to co-develop and commercialise an experimental anticlotting drug. Merck has paid an initial $50 million (£30.9 million) for a worldwide license for the drug, called betrixaban, with additional payments of up to $420 million due if agreed development, regulatory and commercialisation milestones are met. Portola will also receive royalties if the drug reaches the market.
Betrixaban is an oral drug which blocks the action of the clotting protein factor Xa. It is currently in Phase II clinical trials for the prevention of strokes in patients with atrial fibrillation – an abnormal heart rhythm that affects approximately 7 million people in the US and Europe. The current treatment of choice for this condition is warfarin, but getting the dose right can be problematic and it can cause serious interactions with other drugs.

Bayer seeks US approval for new oral contraceptive:

German chemical and pharmaceutical giant Bayer has filed for approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to sell its oral contraceptive containing a ‘natural’ form of oestrogen in America. This move comes a few weeks after the drug – sold under the tradename Qlaira – was launched in Europe.
Qlaira is the first oral contraceptive to use estradiol valerate – which is quickly metabolised to the type of oestrogen naturally produced by female ovaries, estradiol. This is the first time that drug manufacturers have not used ethinylestradiol as the oestrogen component in a contraceptive pill. The progestin component, of which there are many different types, is dienogest. ‘We see a high interest in this new oral contraceptive by woman and gynaecologists,’ says Phil Smits, head of woman’s healthcare at Bayer.

INDUSTRY

BASF to cut up to 3700 more jobs:

BASF has announced plans to axe 3700 jobs by 2013 (most by the end of 2010), and left the future of 23 production sites in doubt following its acquisition of Swiss firm Ciba in April this year.

The announcement leaves a cloud hovering over 23 out of 55 former Ciba production sites with decisions regarding the possibility of their sale, closure or restructuring due to be announced by the end of the first quarter of 2010. The remaining 32 production plants will be restructured or brought in line with BASF’s existing network of sites. Thirty-six of 70 former Ciba research, sales and administration sites are also likely to be consolidated by the end of 2010.

EU Court upholds Reach monomer rules:

Europe’s highest court has rejected an appeal on the interpretation of the Reach chemical regulations approach to polymers and monomers. The Reach regulations exempt polymers, but state that the monomers used to make the polymer must be registered (if they make up more than 2 per cent of the polymer and are made in quantities of more than 1 tonne per year) – even if the polymer is synthesised outside the EU and so the unreacted monomer does not enter the region. Several companies, including Germany’s C H Erbsloeh and UK-based Lake Chemicals and Minerals, had challenged the regulation, but the European Court of Justice declared regulation valid.

Air Liquide expands in the Middle East:

French industrial gas company Air Liquide has continued its expansion in the Middle East, buying 75 per cent of Saudi firm Al Khafrah for an undisclosed sum. The firm says the acquisition complements the Saudi activities of its Pure Helium business, which the French company bought last year.

ENERGY

Rhodia bags biogas business from EConcern:

France-based specialty chemicals company Rhodia has paid an undisclosed amount to acquire the EConcern group’s share in six pilot biogas production projects taking place in China and Vietnam.
Rhodia say that they are anticipating a growth in the market for biogas – a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide that can be used to produce electricity and heat. ‘This new expertise is at the crossroads of our activities of chemist and our activities in the energy and carbon markets,’ says Philippe Rosier, president of Rhodia Energy Services.

James Mitchell Crow and Nina Notman

Since ChemSpider was recently snapped up by the RSC, all of us at CW have been been exploring and using it quite a bit more – no longer just to check we’ve drawn our structures right, but linking through so the reams of information ChemSpider holds are just a click away.

But by far our favourite discovery is that ChemSpider has games – and of course (we tell ourselves), as ChemSpider is now part of the RSC, then playing them is actually work… The amount of time we’re spending on it is in no way related to the fact that we’re a competitive bunch and that you can set up your own league table (and, equally, the timing of this post is in no way related to my current position in our league – at the top). (more…)

In this week’s business round-up we cover heavy drugs, novel batteries, and brighter displays.

PHARMACEUTICALS

He ain’t heavy

US deuterated drug maker Concert Pharmaceuticals has struck a drug development deal with GSK worth up to $1 billion (£0.6 billion) – just weeks after receiving its first US drug patent. The two companies will co-develop three drugs – including for HIV and chronic renal disease – in which some hydrogen atoms are replaced with their heavier sibling, deuterium, in a bid to improve the drugs’ metabolism. On 11 May, Concert was granted US patents for deuterated versions of rimonabant (the troubled anti-obesity drug sold by Sanofi-Aventis as Acomplia) and mosapride – which the company says will be the first of many.

Drug deals

Biotech drugmaker Genzyme has completed its deal to license three oncology drugs from Bayer, after receiving regulatory approval. The deal – which could net Bayer payments of up to $1.25 billion – is focused primarily around the monoclonal antibody Campath (alemtuzumab), already approved for certain leukaemias but now in Phase III clinical trials for multiple sclerosis.

ASCO bonanza

Results from a series of high-profile cancer drug trials – and an unusual partnership deal – were revealed at the American Society of Clinical Oncologists’ annual meeting.

Blockbuster breast cancer drug Herceptin – now fully owned by Roche, after the Swiss firm recently bought out US partner Genentech – was shown to effective against a stomach cancer in patients expressing a certain biomarker. The trial is the first to show Herceptin to be effective outside of breast cancer. Roche also revealed promising early stage trial data for a drug to treat advanced stage melanoma.

Positive early stage data was also announced on a new family of compounds for certain difficult to treat breast cancers. The PARP inhibitors – being developed by Sanofi-Aventis (BSI-201) and AstraZeneca (olaparib) – work by knocking out a key DNA repair mechanism in cancer cells, stopping cells damaged by chemotherapy from healing themselves.

Meanwhile, AstraZeneca and Merck & Co. are to join forces to test a combination cancer treatment based on two experimental drugs – and say they are the first big pharma firms to collaborate on drugs so early in their development. AstraZeneca’s AZD6244 blocks the MEK signalling pathway in cancer cells, while Merck’s MK-2206 blocks a complementary pathway, Akt. The companies hope that blocking both pathways at the same time will prove to be a more effective treatment.

CHEMICAL INDUSTRY

The big screen

— oledtv

DuPont has developed a new generation of organic light emitting diode (OLED) materials that could be used to make cheaper high performance TVs and other displays. The US firm’s OLED materials have an extended lifespan, but are also solution based, so can be cheaply printed like an ink, rather than relying on expensive vapour deposition manufacture. DuPont says it is already in discussion with companies to commercialise the technology.

Dow Chemical gets its coat

US chemicals giant Dow has formed a new coatings business, combining its own coating units with those of Rohm and Haas following its 1 April takeover of the speciality chemicals company. The unit will focus on producing coatings raw materials for the architectural and industrial markets.

Johnson Matthey stays positive

Despite its relatively strong reliance on the ailing car industry, catalyst maker Johnson Matthey has beaten analyst expectations by posting a 1 per cent rise in adjusted pre-tax profits for the year ending 31 March. The company warned of a drop in sales during the first half of financial year 2009/10, but says that longer term prospects for automotive catalysts look strong as legislation on vehicle emissions continues to tighten.

Better batteries

BASF is to commercialise a new cathode material for advanced lithium batteries developed by the US Department of energy’s (DOE) Argonne national lab. The German chemicals giant says it will also build a US production facility for the material, should it win a DOE electric vehicle development grant (a fund established as part of President Obama’s Recovery Act). The cathode material is a lithium- and manganese-rich mixed metal oxide, which Argonne claims extends operating time between charges, extends battery lifespan, and substantially increases energy storage capacity.

ENERGY

Betting on biogas

Netherlands-based chemicals company DSM has agreed to buy German biotech Biopract, which has developed enzyme technology to convert biomass into methane. DSM says alternative energy initiatives mean the market for biogas is growing at a rate of 15-20 per cent per year, and that its purchase of Biopract will accelerate its expansion into the area.

AGROCHEMICALS

— ladybird

BugOil lisenced

UK-based Plant Impact has granted a global license to Japanese crop protection company Arysta LifeScience for its BugOil insecticide. The product, which is claimed to control sap-feeding insect pests while not harming beneficial bugs such as bees and ladybirds, is based on a combination of food-grade plant oils, and is expected by the company to receive EU and US approval in 2010.

James Mitchell Crow

In this week’s business round-up we cover Pfizer’s restructuring charges, GSK’s moves into Africa and Celanese’s blue print for growth.

PHARMACEUTICALS

Pfizer to pay $6 billion in restructuring charges

According to Pfizer’s latest 10-Q SEC (Securities Exchange Commission) filing, the company expects to have to pay $6 billion (£3.95 billion) to finance the cost-cutting programmes associated with its purchase of Wyeth and the downsizing measures it announced in January. The money will be spent paying off some 17,000 employees and shutting down or selling off five manufacturing plants. Digging a little deeper into the numbers makes painful reading as Pfizer plans to have 53 per cent fewer manufacturing employees in 2010 than it did in 2003 as it looks to outsource as much as 30 per cent of its manufacturing capabilities. The plans are expected to deliver savings of around $3 billion a year.

Meanwhile, those Pfizer employees lucky enough to still have jobs proposed that the company set up the ‘Maintain’ programme to enable those Americans that have lost their jobs this year and were taking drugs made by Pfizer for at least three months can still get access to the drugs.

‘The current economic environment has added considerable new stress to the daily life of millions of hard-working Americans, and our colleagues are responding to help their neighbours in the communities where they reside,” said Jeffrey Kindler, Pfizer’s chief executive. ‘ With the launch of this initiative, which I am proud to say was proposed by our colleagues, we are doing what we can to ensure that recent loss of employment does not preclude people from managing their health.’

GSK ventures deeper into Africa

— africa-satellite-small

UK-based pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has bought a 16 per cent share of its South African partner, generics company Aspen Pharmacare, in a deal the firms are touting as a $418 million asset-swap. In return for the stake in the company, GSK will hand over the global rights to eight GSK drugs and a manufacturing plant in Germany. The drugs divested include Alkeran (excluding the US), Kemadrin, Lanvis, Leukeran, Myleran, Purinethol, Septrin and Trandate, which had combined 2008 sales of £56 million.

The two companies originally linked up in July last year, with GSK supplying generic versions of its drugs to the South African company.

Meanwhile, GSK has released results from a head-to-head clinical trial that showed that its cervical cancer vaccine, Cervarix, induces a more powerful immune response to the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) than US rival Merck’s Gardasil. The study showed that seven months after injection Cervarix had generated between two and six times the number of HPV antibodies produced by Gardasil. While GSK will be hoping the results will help it close the gap on Merck’s market-leading shot, Merck said the comparative data was not clinically relevant as there was no evidence that long term immune response made any difference to the long-term risk of developing cancer.

Tamiflu-tastic

Swiss drugmarker Roche has said that due to the swine flu outbreak it is donating an additional 5.65 million packs of its antiviral drug Tamiflu to the World Health Organization (WHO) and that it has been increasing its production of the drug – a move which could potentially turn Tamiflu back into a blockbuster.

Meanwhile, the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) has said that the shelf life for the drug could be extended for up to two years beyond its current expiry date, in a move that could help to relieve short term pressure on the drug. The regulatory body also recommended that both Tamiflu and its competitor, GSK’s Relenza, could be used safely in young children.

However, Indian pharmaceutical firm Cipla has said its generic version of the drug, Antiflu, has been added to the WHO approved list of drugs to fight the pandemic.

Lundbeck soars to record quarterly sales

— images

Danish drug manufacturer Lundbeck has seen its revenues for the first quarter soar 15 per cent to an all time high of DKr3.2 billion (£386 million) driven by sales of the firm’s antidepressant Cipralex increasing 16 per cent to DKr1.36 billion , and sales of its Alzheimer’s therapy increasing 17 per cent to DKr526 million. However, the increased sales volume did little to boost operating profit, which rose 2.4 per cent to DKr947 million as the firm increased by 37 per cent its R&D investment in its late stage pipeline.

Lundbeck’s purchase of US-based Ovation in March, in a deal worth up to £600 million, led the company to increase its sales predictions to DKr13.1-13.6 billion from DKr12-12.5 billion.

INDUSTRY

Celanese presents its blue print for growth

— visuals_singapore2

After suffering from falling sales due to the recession, US based chemical manufacturer Celanese has presented its plans for growth at an investor conference. These include short-term cost savings, as well as realigning its manufacturing footprint with future demand. Part of these plans involve an expansion of its acetic acid unit in Nanjing, China, because of the growing demand for acetic acid in the country. The capacity of the current plant will be doubled to 1.2 million tonnes by the end of 2009.

‘Through portfolio optimisation, productivity, innovation and growth, Celanese continues to execute its strategy of becoming a leading, global hybrid chemical company with significant earnings power,’ said David Weidman, chief executive of Celanese. ‘We are taking actions that position Celanese for success today and in the future.’

Asahi Kasei exits fine chemicals

Japanese chemical manufacturer Asahi Kasei has said it will withdraw from the fine chemicals business and liquidate its Asahi Kasei N&P subsidiary based in Shiraoi in Hokkaido, Japan. The company established the subsidiary in 1975 to manufacture antibiotics for use as animal feed additives and it developed into a key manufacturer of fermentation products. Since 2005 it has focussed on the manufacture of functional food additive conenzyme Q10. However, the market became oversaturated and prices have fallen to such a level that the subsidiary has ‘been placed in a position of continuing unprofitability’.

The company is also closing its Construction Materials subsidiary and will close its manufacturing facility which is also based in Shiraoi. The move will see Asahi Kasei cease all operations in Shiraoi, however the 48 employees of the N&P subsidiary and the 36 employees working at the Construction Materials plant will be repositioned within the group.

Huntsman posts first-quarter loss

US chemical maker Huntsman saw revenues for the first quarter slip by 33 per cent to $1.69 billion due to lower volumes of sales and falling selling prices. This caused the company to slip to an operating loss of $159 million compared to an operating profit of $16 million during the same period in 2008.

However, its not all bad news, as a Texas court has cleared the way for the company to continue its multibillion dollar lawsuit against Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank, which stems from the failed takeover of Huntsman by Hexion. Hexion’s offer had led Huntsman to buy its way out of a previously agreed deal with Basell.

Huntsman claims against the Banks include: common law fraud in connection with the Basell agreement, tortious interference with Huntsman’s merger agreement with Hexion, negligent misrepresentation, and civil conspiracy.

Could this be the first lab researcher that doesn’t require regular coffee breaks?

A team led by Ross King at Aberystwyth University have developed what they say is the first machine to independently discover new scientific knowledge, using artificial intelligence to come up with a hypothesis, then devising and running experiments to test its theory.

The robot – called Adam – is just a prototype (don’t tell him though – we all know what can happen when robots get cross with the human race, and it invariably involves Armageddon). But he’s already discovered several enzymes involved in the metabolism of baker’s yeast by running reactions and interpreting the results. (more…)

A recent race that lined up maggots against hydrogels has been declared a draw.

A team at the University of York were trying to establish which was the quickest way to heal leg ulcers – either by applying the standard wound-cleaning hydrogel treatment, or by adding maggots to clean the wound.

The randomised controlled clinical trial, published in the BMJ, found that the maggot treatment was no quicker at healing the wound than the hydrogel approach.

If you don’t much fancy the idea of maggots feasting on your flesh, you’ll probably be relieved to hear these findings. But the maggots are actually particularly fussy eaters, with a taste for dead tissue and a strong dislike for live stuff – when they’ve cleaned the wound of dead tissue, they prefer to eat each other rather than tuck in to the surrounding healthy tissue. While the maggots did indeed prove to be faster than the hydrogel at cleaning the wound of dead tissue, the overall healing process took just as long.

The latest expedition to the Southern Ocean to test the theory that fertilising the ocean combat climate change has concluded that the process sucks negligible amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere.

The theory goes that sprinkling iron into areas of the ocean lacking in the metal will stimulate the growth of algae, which will absorb CO2 from the air as they grow and then carry some of this greenhouse gas to the depths of the ocean when they die.

The German-Indian Lohafex project is the latest expedition to test out the theory in practice. The team found that dumping six tonnes of iron into the ocean did indeed boost algal growth – but that within two weeks the algae were being eaten by a voracious band of tiny crustaceans called copepods, drastically cutting the amount of carbon captured.

— narvekar_nwap2_clip_image002

These results are just the latest to show that a process that at first glance appears relatively simple is actually far from it. Previous studies – including most recently an investigation into the effects of natural iron fertilisation, where the metal is washed from land into the ocean – have produced conflicting data as to how much extra carbon might be captured.

The Lohafex team suggest that the area of ocean they tested may have been deficient in silicic acid as well as iron, which prevented a bloom of silica-shelled diatoms from forming. Previous fertilisation experiments that did show carbon capture found that diatoms were the blooming species. ‘Since the silicic acid content in the northern half of the Southern Ocean is low, iron fertilisation in this vast region will not result in removal of significant amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere,’ the German researchers conclude.

In this week’s business round up, we cover the mega-mergers as the pharmaceutical and chemical industries continue to consolidate, and the cannabis drug news exciting investors.

INDUSTRIAL

Dow re-agrees Rohm and Haas takeover

After almost ending up in court, US chemicals company Dow has agreed to complete its $15.4 billion (£11 billion) takeover of speciality chemicals firm Rohm and Haas. After originally agreeing the deal in July 2008, Dow CEO Andrew Liveris declared in January that the prevailing economic conditions made the merger ‘untenable at this time’. However, with the threat of a potentially expensive legal battle looming, Dow has restructured financial aspects of the deal and agreed to close the merger.

Eastman cuts costs

In a bid to survive the economic downturn, Eastman Chemical Company has announced plans to cuts its costs by a further $100 million, just three months after announcing a similar plan also intended to trim over $100 million from its outgoings. The latest measures involve pay cuts, and further redundancies of between 200 and 300 staff, as well as cuts to ‘non-critical’ maintenance.

BASF’s Ciba purchase edges closer

Germany’s BASF has received EU approval for its SF6.1 billion (£3 billion) takeover of Swiss speciality chemicals company Ciba. The approval is conditional on the company selling off various product lines and production facilities. The deal now rests on the approval of the US competition authorities.

Bio-alkylene carbonate product launched

Texas-based speciality chemicals company Huntsman has developed an alklyene carbonate product based on bio-glycerine, a waste product formed during biodiesel manufacture. The company says the glycerine carbonate can be used as a solvent or as a reactive intermediate for coatings, adhesives and lubricants.

Clariant’s China investment

Swiss chemicals company Clariant is expanding its operations in China by building a new surfactants plant in Zhenjiang in the east of the country, in order to meet growing local demand. Production is scheduled to start by the middle of the year.

PHARMACEUTICALS

Mega-mergers

In a week of huge merger deals in the pharmaceutical industry, US drugmaker Merck has agreed to buy Schering-Plough for over $40 billion, and US biopharma firm Genentech has finally agreed to accept an offer from Roche for the Swiss firm to buy the 44 per cent of the company that it doesn’t already own. Meanwhile, a bidding war seems to have broken out between Japan’s Astellas and US-based Gilead for CV Therapeutics.

Cannabis-based treatment edges closer to market

Shares in UK drug company GW Pharmaceuticals rocketed by almost 50 per cent after the company announced positive results from Phase III clinical trials for its cannabis-based drug Sativex for treating spasticity in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). Following the announcement, the company said it would submit the drug for UK and European approval during the second quarter of this year.

Targetting thrombin

A Phase II study of Schering-Plough‘s first-in-class experimental anti-blood-clotting drug SCH 530348 has shown the drug is well tolerated for use to prevent clots in patients who have been fitted with stents following surgery to clear cholesterol-clogged arteries. The drug selectively targets one role of the blood protein thrombin – its role in promoting platelets to clump together to form clots is inhibited, but the protein can still make fibrin, which is needed for repair of damaged tissue.

Sanofi invests in Mexico

French firm Sanofi-aventis is to build a €100 million (£92 million) flu vaccine production plant in Mexico. The plant will manufacture vaccines in collaboration with Mexican federal vaccine maker Birmex, but will be designed to be switchable to pandemic flu vaccine production.

AGROCHEMICALS

Drought-tolerant corn

Monsanto says it has completed its submission to US and Canadian regulators for approval for the world’s first corn strain engineered to be drought-tolerant. The corn, developed by the US firm jointly with BASF, is designed to mitigate the effects of water scarcity on the plant, and in field trials in drought-prone regions boosted yields by up to 10 per cent, the company says.

— Chemistry World podcast

In 1959, Caltech physicist Richard Feynman gave his now famous There’s plenty of room at the bottom lecture, where he outlined his vision of arranging structures atom by atom – predicting the field we now call nanotechnology. Fifty years on, Professor Sir Fraser Stoddart shares his views on the true impact of Feynman’s talk in this month’s Chemistry World podcast.

Also this month, we hear about US military research into chemically controlled moths, and clumsy cooks will want to listen out for our discussions on the world’s toughest ceramic. It’s cracking stuff. And could a trace metal be limiting tropical forests’ take-up of carbon dioxide?

— b814911a-400

Is it a moth-on-a-chip, or a chip-on-a-moth? Either way, US scientists have found a way to control the insect’s flight by implanting a microfluidic chip into their thorax which releases a controlling chemical on demand. The chip works like a chemical on-off switch, stopping the moths from flying – as the video shows.

When electrically activated, the chip stops the moth flying by releasing a paralysing chemical such as gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) – so not a particuarly subtle way to stop the moth from flying, then. But research continues, and it’s being funded by the US defence department, Darpa. Could chemically-controlled critters soon be flying daring military reconnaissance missions?

Read the full story in Chemistry World, and the full paper in Lab on a Chip.