Business Watch: Symrise finds buyer for terpene unit, and more

As a longtime watcher of the US chemical industry, I get a little wistful when I hear about a plant closure. It’s even more poignant when the closure comes right before Labor Day. But that’s what happened on Sept. 2, when the Swedish company Perstorp closed a polyol plant in Toledo, Ohio, that employs about 130 people (see story below).

The US is blessed with plentiful oil and low-cost natural gas, raw materials that should make for a robust chemical industry. And the country is quite successful at making basic commodities like polyethylene, ammonia, and ethylene glycol from those raw materials. But for reasons I can’t explain, the track record is worse further downstream, at specialty chemical plants like the one in Toledo.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics says chemical manufacturing employed 901,000 people in August. That’s down from a recent peak of 915,000 in 2022, though up from about 780,000 in 2012. The industry employed more than 1 million people in 1990.

On the bright side, chemistry pays pretty well. The American Chemical Society’s last survey of members found that the median salary for US chemists and chemical engineers was $120,000 in 2024, up 9% from 2023. (ACS publishes C&EN but is not involved in editorial decisions.)

Hope that your job is going well and that you had a great Labor Day weekend!

Questions? Comments? Tips? Send them to me, business editor Michael McCoy, at [email protected].

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Business in brief

Symrise’s terpene business goes to Mutares

The investment firm Mutares has acquired Symrise’s terpene ingredient business for an undisclosed sum. The business has about $200 million in annual sales and employs about 170 people, many at its plants in Jacksonville, Florida, and Colonels Island, Georgia, where it extracts terpene chemicals from pine-based feedstocks. Its products include dihydromyrcenol, linalool, and anethole, used in perfumes, household products, and food and beverages. Symrise, a German flavor and fragrance firm, got into the terpene business in 2015 by acquiring Pinova for $420 million, but it apparently didn’t perform as expected. Symrise says in a press release that it expects the transaction to result in a loss in the “mid-double-digit million-euro” range. For its part, Mutares says the business represents a new investment for its chemicals and materials segment. The investment firm recently acquired Sabic’s engineering plastics business for $450 million.

—Michael McCoy

Perstorp closes Ohio pentaerythritol plant

The Swedish specialty chemical maker Perstorp has closed its facility in Toledo, Ohio, which was the only US producer of trimethylolpropane and pentaerythritol. Perstorp also makes di-pentaerythritol and sodium formate at the location; the products are primarily used in coatings and lubricants. The Toledo site employs about 130 people, roughly 70% of the firm’s US workforce. Perstorp bought the facility in 1976 and over the years has grown the business through acquisitions—such as the purchase in 1991 of a plant that makes formaldehyde, a precursor for trimethylolpropane and pentaerythritol. It acquired Ashland’s pentaerythritol business in 2011. Perstorp says in an announcement that the “decision follows a thorough assessment of Perstorp’s manufacturing footprint and reflects the need to consolidate production.” The Malaysian energy and petrochemical firm Petronas purchased Perstorp in 2022.

—Alex Tullo

Messer advances captured CO₂ terminal in Germany

The industrial gas maker Messer is forming a joint venture with the energy and logistics firm Ambrian Energy that will build a carbon dioxide export terminal in Bremen, Germany. The venture, called CarbonBridge, gained antitrust approval from European regulators at the end of August. Messer representatives say the two firms have been in contact for about 2 years and, with the antitrust hurdle behind them, will formalize the joint venture in the next few weeks. The terminal, which is scheduled to start operating as early as 2030, will accept captured CO₂ by railcar from a range of heavy-industry customers, including chemical makers, and ship it to geological storage sites in the North Sea. The site will have 2.3 million metric tons (t) per year of capacity upon opening and may be expanded to 4 million t. Long term, CarbonBridge also hopes to add CO₂ pipeline connections and supply plants that convert CO₂ to chemicals and fuels. Messer is one of several industrial gas firms developing CO₂ management as a service. The German company says it already has more than 300 capture plants using aqueous amine systems in operation worldwide and is exploring other carbon capture chemistries.

—Craig Bettenhausen

EU funds Imerys lithium plant in France

Imerys has bagged a $135 million European Union grant for the construction of a lithium conversion plant in Saint-Victor, France, that will extract and refine domestic lithium to equip 700,000 electric vehicles annually. The money comes from the EU’s Innovation Fund, a program set up to scale low-carbon technologies. Imerys says the plant will be designed to meet high environmental standards and demonstrate “how responsible mining and refining can power a sustainable future.” Imerys is among several European companies receiving state funding for domestic lithium processing. In December, Germany’s Vulcan Energy secured $290 million from the European Investment Bank as part of a $2.3 billion package for geothermal lithium extraction. And in August, Cornish Lithium received a $10 million UK government grant for a drilling and testing project. Earlier this year, Imerys shuttered a lithium project in England, citing a “challenging business climate.”

—Vanessa Zainzinger, special to C&EN

Mitsui takes control of artificial sweetener business

Mitsui & Co. has agreed to pay Celanese about $152 million to consolidate control of their Nutrinova food ingredient joint venture. Mitsui, a Japanese trading company, first invested in Nutrinova in March 2024. The new deal will give it a further 19% of the venture, raising its stake to 89%. Nutrinova runs a facility in Frankfurt, Germany, where it makes the preservatives sorbic acid and potassium sorbate and the artificial sweetener acesulfame potassium (Ace-K); it is the only Western producer of the latter. In a related deal, Celanese will acquire a plant in Frankfurt that makes diketene, a raw material for sorbates and Ace-K, from the Indian firm Sudarshan for close to $90 million. Celanese will later transfer the diketene facility to Nutrinova.

—Michael McCoy

Quote of the week

Novonesis earmarks $695 million for India enzyme plant

The Danish enzyme producer Novonesis plans to spend $695 million to expand its site in Patalganga, India, with a “next-generation” production facility. The facility, which is expected to be fully operational in 2030, will produce enzymes for industries including biofuels, household care, and food and beverages. Novonesis is increasing its footprint across the Middle East, India, and Africa, which chief operating officer Anders Lund describes in a press release as “key growth markets.” The investment in Patalganga follows closely on expansions at facilities in Rayong, Thailand; Franklinton, North Carolina; Taicang, China; Araucária, Brazil; and West Allis, Wisconsin.

—Vanessa Zainzinger, special to C&EN

Albemarle taps mining executive as new CEO

The specialty chemical maker Albemarle has appointed Ragnar “Rag” Udd as CEO effective Feb. 1, 2027. Udd will take over from Kent Masters, who has helmed the company since 2020 and will stay on its board as executive chairman. In recent years, Albemarle has increasingly focused on lithium for batteries, which in 2025 generated more than half its $5.1 billion in sales. Albemarle’s other business are catalysts and bromine-based chemicals. Udd has a résumé that lends itself to the company’s lithium identity. Since 2024, he has served as the chief commercial officer of the Australian mining giant BHP and has held roles of increasing responsibility in natural resource extraction.

—Alex Tullo

Air Products expands industrial hydrogenation lab in Pennsylvania

The industrial gas firm Air Products and Chemicals has expanded the hydrogenation research lab at its headquarters in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Air Products is a major global supplier of hydrogen, and the lab is designed to develop and scale up continuous-flow catalytic processes for customer companies. In a press release, the firm cites pharmaceuticals, flavors and fragrances, refining, and chemical production as target markets for the types of reactions the lab is set up to work on. Hydrogenation has also emerged as a critical step in most efforts to make chemicals and fuels from sustainable feedstocks such as biomass, solid waste, and carbon dioxide.

—Craig Bettenhausen

GSK licenses ADC from Hutchmed for $110 million

The pharmaceutical giant GSK is paying China’s Hutchmed $110 million up front and could pay more than $1 billion more for the rights to an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) for various cancers. The ADC consists of a small molecule designed to inhibit the cancer-driving protein Kras coupled with an antibody that targets epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). The companies say they will develop the molecule, HMPL-A830, for colorectal, lung, and pancreatic cancers. A Phase 1 trial is slated to begin later this year.

—Rowan Walrath

FDA approves Takeda’s peptide for rare blood disease

Just over 2 years after Takeda Pharmaceutical licensed the peptide rusfertide from Protagonist Therapeutics for $300 million up front, the US Food and Drug Administration has approved it to treat the rare blood disorder polycythemia vera (PV). In PV, the body makes too many red blood cells, putting people at an increased risk of heart attack and stroke and causing chronic fatigue and confusion. Rusfertide is designed to regulate iron homeostasis and control how iron is absorbed, stored, and distributed, thus limiting the iron available to make new red blood cells. Takeda is marketing the peptide, which is given as a weekly injection, under the name Mimrylo. The company has priced the drug at $4,200 per vial, according to Reuters.

—Rowan Walrath

UW to open $95 million accelerator for AI biology

The University of Washington (UW) has launched an accelerator, called AI BioDesign, in partnership with the Fred Hutch Cancer Center and the Allen Institute. AI BioDesign is starting with $95 million from the Fund for Science and Technology, a foundation associated with Paul G. Allen philanthropies. AI BioDesign’s scientific leader is chemistry Nobel laureate David Baker, a professor at UW. The organization says it will work toward designing biological molecules beyond what already exists in nature by using an iterative process of designs suggested by AI and tested by scientists.

—Sarah Braner

ARPA-H allocates $125 million for RNA medicine manufacturing

The US Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) has announced the recipients of up to $125 million in total funding for manufacturing and quality control of RNA medicines: Centillion Biosciences, HDT Bio, Massachusetts General Hospital, Waterfall Scientific, and the University of Utah. The funding is part of ARPA-H’s Genetic Medicines and Individualized Manufacturing for Everyone program, which aims to speed up manufacturing of genetic medicines through automation, real-time quality control, and a network that enables the medicines to be produced in locations to patients. Separately, ARPA-H awarded up to $98.5 million to advance artificial intelligence for rare disease diagnosis, discovery, and treatment.

—Sarah Braner

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