Chemical Management
Arcadium Lithium | January 08, 2024
Arcadium Lithium plc announced the completion of the all-stock merger of equals between Allkem and Livent. The new, combined company is a leading global lithium chemicals producer committed to safely and responsibly harnessing the power of lithium to improve people's lives and accelerate the transition to a clean energy future. With roughly U.S. $1.9 billion of combined total revenue in 2022 and a global team of more than 2,600 employees, Arcadium Lithium is one of the largest integrated producers of lithium chemicals in the world.
Paul Graves, Chief Executive Officer of Arcadium Lithium, said: "As one of the leading global producers of lithium chemicals, Arcadium Lithium has the resources, scale and expertise to meet the growing needs of our rapidly changing industry. We are a leader in every major lithium extraction process – from hard rock mining to conventional pond and DLE-based brine processing – and vertically integrated, from resource to chemical manufacturing, in strategic locations around the world. This will open doors to new opportunities and strengthen our ability to deliver value to our customers, investors, employees and communities."
Mr. Graves continued: "It is a privilege for me to lead this great company forward with such an incredible team. This transformational merger would not have been possible without the hard work and commitment of our integration planning teams over the past months. I want to thank them and all of our employees around the world for getting us to this position. Together, we are launching an exciting new company that combines the strengths and storied legacies of two incredible organizations, both with an wavering commitment to safe, responsible and sustainable operations. We look forward to building on this strong foundation and leading our industry forward."
Arcadium Lithium ordinary shares will begin trading today on the NYSE under the ticker "ALTM." Arcadium Lithium also maintains a foreign exempt listing on the ASX (via the issue of CHESS Depositary Instruments (CDIs) to Allkem shareholders) and will commence trading on a normal settlement basis on the ASX under the ticker "LTM" at 10:00am (AEDT) on January 5, 2024. Allkem shareholders received either: (a) one Arcadium Lithium ASX listed CDI; or (b) one Arcadium Lithium NYSE listed share depending where they resided and what election (if any) they had made for each Allkem ordinary share held, except for shareholders in certain ineligible jurisdictions, who will receive cash proceeds from the sale of the Arcadium Lithium CDIs in lieu of such CDIs after closing. Livent shareholders received 2.406 Arcadium Lithium NYSE listed ordinary shares for each Livent share held.
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Chemical Management
Shrieve | January 11, 2024
Shrieve Chemical Company a portfolio company of Gemspring Capital and a leading, value-added chemicals distributor, announced that it has acquired TLC Ingredients ("TLC"), a distributor of food ingredients, industrial chemicals, and phenolic resins based in Crest Hill, Illinois. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Founded in 2001, TLC has built a reputation as a premier distributor, distinguished by a dedication to operational excellence, food safety, and responsible distribution. With a class-leading facility in the Midwest, the company is well-equipped to meet the evolving needs of customers with high service levels.
The acquisition expands Shrieve's presence in the Midwest and enhances the company's ability to serve the attractive – and growing – food ingredients end-market. Additionally, it positions Shrieve strategically to leverage its existing product lines to serve TLC's high-growth specialty industrial customers, who have relied on TLC as a trusted supplier of Durez phenolic resins for more than two decades.
"I am thrilled to welcome TLC Ingredients to the Shrieve Chemical family. This acquisition underscores our commitment to excellence and focus on long-term growth as we look to thoughtfully increase our presence and the value-added services we can provide across the country," said George Fuller, CEO of Shrieve. "The TLC team has built an exceptional business with an industry-leading distribution facility, long-standing supplier relationships, and a broad product offering that serves several attractive global end-markets. TLC's expertise, innovative approach, and customer focus aligns very well with our broader strategic vision. Together, we look forward to delivering enhanced value to our customers and supplier partners."
"We are excited about the future as we partner with Shrieve and continue to expand, building on our reputation as one of the highest-quality food ingredient and chemical distributors in the United States," said Tommy Turiff, President of TLC Ingredients. "Our shared commitment to excellence and dedication to our customers make this an ideal partnership. We look forward to bringing our combined expertise and capabilities to the market and continuing to serve our customers with enhanced resources and innovation."
About Shrieve
Shrieve, based in The Woodlands, TX, is a leading, value-added chemicals distributor serving attractive markets and end-use applications globally. Since its founding in 1978, Shrieve has leveraged its knowledge network to find the best match between suppliers, customer needs, and product applications. Through its four operating segments, Chemical Distribution, Specialty Lubricants and Enhancers, Energy Products and Services, and Custom Packaging, Shrieve markets nearly 1,500 products across more than 40 countries.
About TLC Ingredients
Based in Crest Hill, IL, TLC Ingredients is a distributor of food ingredients, industrial chemicals, and phenolic resins. The company was founded in 2001 and provides its customers and suppliers with the highest levels of service. TLC's corporate culture is built on the twin pillars of Food Safety and Responsible Distribution.
About Gemspring Capital
Gemspring Capital, a Westport, Connecticut-based private equity firm with $3.5 billion of capital under management, provides flexible capital solutions to middle market companies. Gemspring partners with talented management teams and takes a partnership approach to helping drive revenue growth, value creation and sustainable competitive advantages. Target companies have up to $500 million in revenue and are in the aerospace & defense, business services, consumer services, financial and insurance services, healthcare services, industrial services, software and tech-enabled services, or specialty manufacturing sectors.
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Chemical Technology
Chemify | January 23, 2024
Chemify and Prepaire™ Labs announced to expand their partnership with an additional program to tackle the ongoing Opioid crisis and develop a novel class of digitally discovered non-addictive Opioids as pain modulators, as well as drugs tackling Opioid addiction directly by combining Chemify's breakthrough programmable chemistry platform with Prepaire’s integrated novel open collaboration drug discovery platform. The project, named Toxifree, comes in response to the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) requesting drugmakers and researchers to develop treatments for stimulant use disorder, hoping to address a major gap in the addiction crisis response.
After a successful initial partnership, Chemify and Prepaire are now aiming to leverage Chemify's Chemputation technology which enables the automated and integrated design, discovery, and synthesis of complex molecules on demand using a chemical programming language and Prepaire's advanced open-architecture drug development platform.
Under the terms of this partnership, Chemify will design and discover novel compounds to identify Opioid-derived hits and develop them further into candidates. Chemify will receive at least USD $30 million in payments and pre-negotiated, success-driven clinical and regulatory milestones for each developed molecule, as well as single digit royalties on any resulting products.
Lee Cronin, Chemify's Founder and CEO and Regius Professor of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow has extensive experience leading research efforts to develop solutions for the opioid crisis. Cronin lead a team that won several NIH-prize challenges including winning the grand runner up prize for the design, discovery and automated synthesis of next generation, safer and non-addictive drug-candidates to help address the opioid crisis.
"We are extremely excited to combine Chemify's technology for molecular design, discovery and synthesis with the integrated Prepaire platform to expand our collaboration and create a fully integrated, digitally driven drug discovery approach. With this partnership we are breaking ground on a new pain modulation discovery program that aims to tackle the global need for better and non-addictive pain medication. With our unique design approach guided by Chemputation, we are utilizing an evolutionary approach to discovering novel compounds to solve this devastating and critical healthcare need," said Professor Lee Cronin, Chemify's Founder and CEO.
"Our partnership with Chemify allows our discovery platform to integrate directly with Chemify's chemical space exploration approach, enabling us to access novel chemical matter that would have otherwise been inaccessible. As we progress our collaboration, we are aiming to build an integrated approach that can be used for many more indications beyond novel pain modulators. There aren't any approved treatments to help address addiction to opioids, whose use has surged in recent years. The purpose of this FDA guidance is to assist in the clinical trial designs for the development of novel drugs to support indications for treatment of moderate to severe cocaine use disorder, treatment of moderate to severe methamphetamine use disorder, or treatment of moderate to severe prescription stimulant use disorder," said Dr Vicent Ribas, Prepaire’s Co-Founder.
About Chemputation
Digital chemistry applies principles of computation to chemistry for programable chemistry and Chemify has developed the underpinning infrastructure to make this possible for chemical discovery and synthesis. Like a computer program, digital chemistry programs can automatically run chemical experiments, make new molecules, and ensure that complex chemical recipes are always accessible and perfectly reproducible. Chemical programs are precise pieces of code that allow fully transparent and reliable operation allowing the implementation of AI and other techniques with full audit and safety.
About Chemify
Based in Glasgow, Chemify is a pioneering company digitizing chemistry to provide world-leading pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and industrial partners access to an exponentially growing space of novel molecules and materials. By leveraging decades of chemistry experience, hardware robotics, and artificial intelligence, Chemify's Chemputation technology enables companies to access an end-to-end workflow for drug discovery, molecule synthesis, and materials discovery. Chemify was founded by CEO Lee Cronin based on conceptual advancements from Cronin's Digital Chemistry Laboratory at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. By building the infrastructure to digitize chemistry, Chemify is reimagining chemical research, discovery and manufacturing to benefit all of humanity by accelerating advances across chemistry with a focus on medicine and functional materials.
About Prepaire Labs
Prepaire Labs is a pioneering healthcare technology company focused on revolutionizing drug discovery and precision medicine. Through the integration of deep learning and biology, Prepaire Labs builds predictive models grounded in genetic, phenotypic, and clinical data. These models form a view to the underlying architecture and biology of diseases. Prepaire Labs utilizes patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), genome editing, high-content cellular phenotyping, and machine learning to create in vitro disease models that optimize genetics, cell-type, environment, and multidimensional data collection for increased predictability of human clinical outcomes. A state-of-the-art BSL3 lab is opening in May 2024, located at Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
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Chemical Management
Charter Next Generation | January 30, 2024
Charter Next Generation (CNG), a leading provider of sustainable films, announced that it has expanded its GreenArrow portfolio with a new line of cavitated polyethylene (PE) films. Developed in collaboration with VOID Technologies (VOID), the new recycle-ready films meet the rapidly growing demand for flow wrap and confectionery applications. Using VOID's patented VO+™ PE Voiding Agent Masterbatch and Machine Direction Orientation (MDO) film processing, CNG has successfully developed high-performing PE film structures that are opaque yet compatible with existing PE recycling streams making more packaging suitable for recycling.
Adoption of MDO PE film is a rapidly growing industry trend as it enables recyclable, high-performing flexible packaging. By using VO+ Masterbatch, CNG can now produce thin gauge voided MDO PE films that offer a combination of low density and high opacity not achievable with mineral additives such as TiO2 pigments or CaCO3 cavitation agents. This innovation creates a unique PE-based recycle-ready alternative to conventional PP-based substrates that often require biaxial orientation.
"CNG continues to raise the bar and re-invent packaging with a sustainability-first mindset. Using VOID's patented VO+ technology enables us to achieve the high opacity, ease of processing, and recycle-ready performance we are targeting for these films. This in turn allows our customers to reduce their use of virgin materials and process their packaging in existing polyethylene film recycling streams," said Brent Greiner, Vice-President of Technology at Charter Next Generation.
The VO+ PE Masterbatch is added to PE resin to create nano and micro-scale voids, reducing density and creating high levels of opacity via light scattering through the voided structure. VOID's latest VO+ PE Masterbatch product is compliant with direct food contact standards in North America and Europe and has passed key recycling standards.
James Gibson, CEO of VOID Technologies, commented, "CNG is a highly innovative and forward-thinking company. We are delighted with this collaboration and to be part of launching this new generation of recycle-ready voided PE films. As we look to the future, we are excited to be working with CNG across a range of projects that directly address sustainability and recycling targets."
About Charter Next Generation
Charter Next Generation (CNG) is North America's leading producer of highly engineered solutions used in the food, consumer, healthcare, and industrial markets. Committed to a sustainability-first approach, CNG leverages material science to engineer materials that help companies meet and exceed their sustainability goals. Known for world-class manufacturing capabilities and an innovation-driven approach, CNG operates fifteen facilities and employs over 2,200 employees and is a proud partner of Ownership Works®—a nonprofit partnering with companies to enable shared ownership, granting employees a stake in the value they create.
About VOID Technologies
VOID is a materials science company accelerating the transition to more sustainable plastics and packaging. The company combines its VO+ cavitation technology and R&D labs to help plastic and packaging companies rapidly develop new innovative products with a reduced environmental footprint. VOID's extensively patented VO+ technology was first conceived as part of a research initiative at Kimberly-Clark. Soon after, in 2015, VOID was launched as an independent company. Today, VOID has R&D labs and a compound manufacturing facility based in Neenah, Wisconsin (USA) and has commercial teams in Canada, France, and the UK.
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