Chemical processors are under increased pressure to achieve operational excellence, which involves a balance of increasing yield, improving quality and reducing waste, while also cutting operational costs. Processors in high-purity industries face these same challenges, but have an additional set of requirements centered around sterility and safety of the process, operators and products, which makes achieving operational excellence even more difficult. At the same time, trends in the pharmaceutical and semiconductor industries — namely more potent active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for pharmaceutical producers and a growing demand to increase yield by avoiding contamination for semiconductor manufacturers — are leading to the development of equipment aimed at helping pharmaceutical and semiconductor producers edge closer to their operational goals. MORE

Bionova Scientific, an Asahi Kasei Corp. (Tokyo) company and commercial-scale biologics contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), has announced the opening of a new facility in Fremont, California. The 55,000 sq. ft. process development and pilot plant will significantly expand the company’s ability to advance early-stage biologics assets to first-in-human trials and facilitate the future expansion of its manufacturing capacity.  MORE

Toray Industries, Inc. (Tokyo) announced that it has opened the Toray Taiwan Technical Center. The new facility will reinforce R&D in advanced semiconductor technologies and materials and provide technical services in the Taiwan market, which is becoming increasingly important in the global semiconductor supply chain. The Toray Group operates globally, providing a range of semiconductor, electronic component, and display solutions.  MORE
 

Syensqo S.A. (Brussels, Belgium) announced a strategic partnership with Emulseo, a French company specialized in formulations for microfluidic technology - the manipulation of liquids at microscopic scale. Under this agreement, Emulseo will include Syensqo's advanced solution, Galden PFPE in its Fluo-Oil range of products to provide its customers with an essential component in creating reliable and performant droplet-based microfluidic analyses. MORE

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (Waltham, Mass.) announced that the company has entered into a definitive agreement with Solventum  to acquire Solventum’s Purification & Filtration business for approximately $4.1 billion in cash. Solventum’s Purification & Filtration business is a leading provider of purification and filtration technologies used in the production of biologics as well as in medical technologies and industrial applications.  MORE

Nouryon (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) announced the expansion of its Kromasil chromatography-media manufacturing facility in Bohus, Sweden. Construction will begin in early 2025, and the start of production is expected in early 2027. This expansion will double the facility’s capacity to meet the growing global demand for peptide-based drugs in the GLP-1 receptor agonist class.  MORE