Chemistry

The German chemical group BASF will cut 180 jobs in the Basel region: the cut will occur within 2018 and will cover the area of research and development. The measure is part of a restructuring launched worldwide.

In the research center in Basel – with offices in Basel and Schweizerhalle-Rosental – BASF works with additives and pigments for plastics and lacquers, as well as new materials for organic electronics and 3D printing. Most of these activities will be halted or moved elsewhere in the group, it said in a statement. The Basel region will remain important, however, for other research and development activities, emphasizes the group. In addition to the 180 jobs eliminated there will be an additional 100 to be transferred to other business units in Switzerland.

Syngenta and China National Chemical Corporation (ChemChina) have not submitted to the EU Antitrust grant proposals to get the go-ahead to the acquisition of $ 43 billion of the Swiss group of agro-chemicals and the news has caused the collapse of Syngenta, at Zurich stock exchange the swiss company lost more than 9%.

Novartis will close Schlieren’s plant in the canton of Zurich, cutting 73 jobs.
The Swiss pharmaceutical company said yesterday that it would be moving its key research facility here to Basel ad Cambridge (US) as part of a “broader, global strategic plan” to shore up its resources. Novartis will leave also Singapore where it set up a private-public partnership with Singapore’s Economic Development Board.

US drug giant AstraZeneca said on Monday that it has signed a deal with Allergan through its global biologics research and development unit MedImmune, where the latter will pay up to $1.52B for rights to MEDI2070, an antibody for Crohn’s disease.

Allergan pays $250mln up front, but it might also make payments worth up to $1.27bln over a period of up to 15 years, tied to potential sales of the antibody, MEDI2070, a treatment that is currently undergoing clinical trials for moderate to severe Crohn’s disease.

Marriage between Bayer and Monsanto, giant seed, may be announced. As reported by the BBC website, after yet another revival of the German company that has put into the pot $ 130 per share, valuing the US group $ 66 billion, the leaders of American society have accepted the offer.