In this week’s Chemistry World business news round-up, we cover the escape from Hurricane Gustav, warnings over the Vytorin cancer risk, and hydrogen power in Europe’s cars.

Chemical Industry

Gustav weathered:
Chemical facilities in the US gulf coast survived Hurricane Gustav without incident or injury, according to the American Chemistry Council. Plants throughout the area are currently working to restore power, and restarting operations. Dow Chemical said its Plaquemine, Louisiana, plant suffered some damage, but this is not expected to effect restart.

Change at Clariant:
Swiss speciality chemicals company Clariant has appointed Hariof Kottmann (below) as new CEO, effective 1 October 2008. On announcing the position, chairman of the Clariant board Juerg Witmer said the company’s aim was to substantially improve performance. Kottmann joins Clariant from Germany’s SGL Group.

Reach management:
European chemical industry body Cefic has launched a service to facilitate information exchange between companies registering the same chemical under Reach, the new European chemicals regulation. The IBM-powered tool, SIEFreach, helps companies to collaborate once they set up a substance information exchange forum (Sief) after pre-registration.

Pharmaceuticals

Secret formula:
Serenex, a US oncology drug development company, has been awarded $57 million (£32 million) by a judge, who ruled that a chemist who formerly worked for the company stole formulations for experimental cancer drugs and gave them to Chinese business partners. The chemist, Yunsheng Huang, has reportedly fled the country - and the accused Chinese companies have failed to respond to the judgement. Serenex was bought by Pfizer in March 2008.

Alzheimer’s drug deal:
Pfizer has agreed a deal with San Francisco-based Medivation to develop and co-market a drug in development for Alzheimer’s and Huntingdon’s disease - which is based on a 25-year old Russian anti-allergy medicine. The drug - Dimebon - has been shown to inhibit brain cell death, and it is hoped could slow the progression of the disease, rather than simply treating the symptoms as the current generation of drugs do. Pfizer will pay an initial fee of $225 million, and up to $725 million if the drug reaches key milestones. The drug is on the verge of entering a second Phase III clinical trial for Alzheimer’s, and a Phase II trial for Huntingdon’s.

Medical journal cautions over Vytorin cancer risk:
The clinical trial that unexpectedly linked troubled cholesterol drug Vytorin with a statistically significant increase in cancer has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine. However, while the authors of the study suggest the link was likely due to chance, an editorial in the journal said that the link should not simply be dismissed, and that follow-up studies are needed.

Japanese pharma looks abroad:
Shionogi has become the latest Japanese company to expand by buying a foreign drugmaker. Following Takeda’s deal to buy Millennium Pharmaceuticals and Daiichi-Sanko’s proposed takeover of India’s Ranbaxy, Shionogi has agreed to buy US firm Sciele for $1.42 billion, boosting its presence outside Japan, where it is facing government-mandated price cuts.

Stent squeeze:
A clinical study by stent maker Boston Scientific, to compare the use of drug-eluting stents to prop open clogged arteries with heart bypass, has failed, showing instead that heart bypass is a better choice. The trial showed significantly more stent patients had to undergo repeat procedures. The stent market is worth about $4 billion annually, but has fallen due to safety concerns.
Meanwhile, a judge has cut the $250 million damages Boston Scientific had been told to pay stent rival Medtronic to just $19 million. Medtronic had accused Boston Scientific of violating several of its patents, but a federal judge has now found two of those patents unenforceable.

Energy

Hydrogen cars go Europe-wide:
The European Parliament has voted to introduce new rules on the approval of new hydrogen-powered vehicles. Currently, hydrogen cars have to be approved separately in each member state - but the rule change will mean hydrogen vehicles are included in the EU-wide approval system already used for conventionally powered cars. The change is intended to encourage the introduction of hydrogen-powered cars - although technical issues surrounding efficient hydrogen production and storage, and the lack of a filling station network, are also barriers.

Agrochemicals

Bayer targets further growth:
Bayer CropScience says it plans to launch 10 new crop protection products by 2012, with peak sales potential of over €1 billion (£808 million), as it looks to continue its record sales growth in the sector. The new products include insecticide spirotetramat, to be launched this year, plus three herbicides and three fungicides to be launched by 2010. Three further, undisclosed compounds are in development for launch by 2012. The company is continuing to increase its CropScience R&D budget, from €637 million in 2007 to over €700 million in 2012.
Meanwhile, an explosion and fire at a Bayer Cropscience plant in West Virginia, US, has left one worker dead and a second injured. The US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is investigating the blast.

Three recent news articles published in Chemical Science celebrate the science behind wine and Champagne.

Did you know that each bottle of Champagne contains 20 million bubbles, and that an uncontrolled Champagne cork reaches speeds of 50-60 kilometers per hour! In Lovely bubbly Gérard Liger-Belair (University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne) discusses these and many other fascinating facts as he raises a glass to the study of Champagne bubbles.

In Tasting the chemistry Susan Ebeler (University of California, Davis, US) revels the many components that contribute to how wine tastes to us. Apparently wine is more important than taste, and how it looks is also significant.

And if you can’t trust your own taste buds to judge the quality of the house wine you are quaffing – maybe a new electronic tongue being developed by Spanish scientist would be of interest. In The wine fraud detective Rachel Cooper discusses a new portable machine able to ‘taste’ the grape varieties and vintages of wine.

Apparently the MRSA superbug can’t stand cannabis. But students everywhere will be disappointed to know that free NHS supplies are not on the agenda.

Published in the Journal of Natural Products, UK and Italian researchers have looked at the antibiotic potential of cannabinoids, the active ingredients in cannabis. These compounds are known to be potent antibacterial agents in plants but their potential to act as an antibiotic has never been assessed.

The group isolated five major cannabinoids, including the pshycotropic agent tetrahydrocannibinol (THC). Each compound was chemically varied at one or two positions but the central cannabinoid core was maintained throughout. They tested all the compounds against six strains of MRSA bacteria, and in all cases, found that the compounds were not only potent (1-2μg/mL) but were equally effective against every strain.

Compare this to other antibiotics used in the fight against MRSA such as erythromycin and tetracycline and what becomes clear is that it is not the potency of cannabinoids that is so valuable but rather their unselective mode of action.

This finding led the researchers to believe that cannabinoids operated through a completely different antibacterial mechanism to traditional antibitoics.

Their hypothesis they say is backed up by the fact that cross-resistance between microbial and plant antibacterial agents is extremely rare. In fact, they add, it is perfectly possible that these compounds may simply escape the bacterial resistance mechanism completely.

We will have to wait and see if they can figure out the exact mechanism to either prove or disprove this hypothesis.

Cannabinoids, more specifically the non-psychoactive varieties, could well be added to the arsenal of drugs aimed at tackling multi-drug resistant bacteria, although it is reasonable to believe that as with most drugs bacteria will quickly build up a resistance to them.

The finding does however illustrate the potential potency of known plant antibacterial agents and offers scientists a library of compounds to test that could be as, if not more, effective against MRSA bacteria.

Check out the coverage at chemblog (Marijuana vs. MRSA) as well.

Ref: G Appendino et al. J. Nat. Prod. 2008 DOI:10.1021/np8002673

The US National Toxicology Program (for the National Institutes of Health) has released its final assessment on the safety of bisphenol A, the chemical used to make polycarbonate and epoxy resins, found in baby bottles, CDs, sports equipment, paints, and adhesives.

It’s the same warning as their draft report (released back in April 2008, with concerns slightly upgraded from preliminary conclusions in August 2007). There is ’some concern’ that BPA could affect health and development in foetuses, infants, and children.

The NIH’s conclusions disagree with the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) August draft statement [pdf] finding that “an adequate margin of safety exists for BPA at current levels of exposure from food contact uses”.

How much concern is ’some’ concern?

(more…)

It’s well known that unborn babies can catch infections from their mother, with the infection passing from mother to child across the placenta. But US researchers have now found a virus that passes to the next generation by hitching a ride in the DNA, and remains active in the child.

The human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) - which can cause roseola (fever and a rash) - was passed on from either the mother or father, who already had it integrating into their chromosomes.

The team at the University of Rochester studied 85 babies with HHV-6, 43 of whom had caught the virus before birth. Of those, just 14 per cent had caught the virus acrsoss the placenta - the rest directly inheriting it from one of their parent’s DNA, passed on via egg or sperm.

The babies who inherited the virus had a high viral load throughout their bodies - but were also producing antibodies to the virus, and didn’t appear to be ill. The Rochester team - who published their research in Pediatrics - now plan to study the babies as they grow up, to see if the virus has any impact on their development.

Whether molecular devices represent the future of data processing, transfer and storage is a discussion for another time. For now, I will keep my opinion to myself, but I have to confess that when I see a report of a new molecular device, whether it is a switch, a shuttle, a valve or a motor (to name just a few), my eyes light up and I have to read on.

The concept of a molecular device is simple, probably why I like them so much. All that’s required of a compound is that it can exist in at least two stable and different conformations that are interchangeable, typically through the careful control of an external stimulus (pH, temperature, light etc.). Providing that each gives a different response that can be detected then it’s done, and you’re on/off system is complete. Simple, I hear you say, but putting it into practice is another story.  

Reported in the Journal of the American Chemical Society this week, is a new switch that provides a platform to perform both read-write and read-only processes.

Using a UV active compound with a large aromatic ring system, Scottish researchers were able to switch between two conformational states by changing the pH of the reaction mixture. This represents a read-write scenario. Taking this one step further, they then managed to irreversibly ‘lock’ each of the conformations in position, now a read-only system, which depending on the chosen conformation, relied on either an oxidation or reduction reaction.

Each of the four conformation states gave a unique UV response and the complete conversion to the desired product was observed in every case, a must for any viable molecular device. To illustrate the robustness of the system, the pH dependent switching was cycled three times prior to any ‘locking’ step.

The researchers are quick to acknowledge that until they successfully immobilise their system onto a surface, it cannot be considered a true molecular device. In the meantime, the debate as to the future of molecular devices continues.

With reference to your recent interview with Cal Dooley, the new head of the ACC: BPA and phthalates are just two of several hundred chemicals that exhibit estrogenic activity (EA) in plastics. These chemicals having EA leach from almost all plastics sold today, including polyethylene, polypropylene, PET, etc. That is, plastics advertised as BPA-free or phthalate-free are not EA-free; almost all these plastics still leach chemicals having EA – and often have more total EA than plastics that release BPA or phthalates.
Current legislation is attempting to solve this problem by removing chemicals having EA (BPA, phthalates) one at a time. This approach, for legislators or the FDA, is not an appropriate solution for consumers because thousands of chemicals used in plastics exhibit EA, not just BPA and phthalates. This approach is a marketing-driven solution, not a health-driven solution. The appropriate health-driven solution is to manufacture safer plastics that are EA-free. This is not a pie-in-the-sky solution, as the technology already exists to produce EA-free plastics that also have the same advantageous physical properties, as do almost all existing EA-releasing plastics on the market today. In fact, some of these advanced-technology EA-free plastics are already in the marketplace. The cost of these safer EA-free plastics are just pennies more than EA-releasing plastics, when both are used to manufacture the same product in similar quantities.

On a recent trip to the US, I realised that I gradually began to feel more and more unwell whilst watching TV. I quickly gave up on trying to pinpoint the cause of my hypercondriatic state (as it turns out even a snivel materialised), but a report in the British Medical Journal this week sparked me into a rethink.

Anyone watching US TV, even for just a few minutes, will quickly realise that you are being bombarded with aggressive pharmaceutical advertising. With unrelenting claims of better creams, faster acting pills and multi-purpose lotions, it is unsurprising that the symptoms of the classic ‘man cold’ quickly materialised in me.

As it turns out, however, pharmaceuticals may be wasting their time and money ($5 billion annually) with direct-to-consumer advertising, according to recent claims by Harvard researchers.

The research looked at consumer trends in Canada relating to three prescription-only drugs; Enbrel (rheumatoid arthritis), Nasonex (nasal allergies) and Zelnorm (irritable bowel sydrome), following the launches of advertising campaigns of each in the US. The group targeted Canadian citizens for two reasons. Firstly, direct-to-consumer advertising is banned in Canada. Secondly, the country has a significant population of French speaking residents.

Getting straight to the point, with much of the US media and advertising leaking across the border, these two factors meant a direct comparison of consumer trends between English speakers and French speakers could be made. The researchers are however quick to acknowledge however that the French speaking control group is not absolutely perfect.

The research found that direct-to-consumer advertising had no effect on the sales of Enbrel and Nasonex, with prescription patterns remaining identical in both English and French speaking groups. They did observe a noticeable spike in sales of Zelnorm, but this was relatively short-lived and after a few years, prescriptions between the two groups resumed identical patterns. The FDA has since pulled Zelnorm from the market with concerns that increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

The researchers conclude by saying that money spent by the pharmaceuticals would be far better placed marketing the drugs directly to doctors.

In this week’s Chemistry World business news round-up, we cover the Glivec fast-track, a new diagnostic test to help organ transplant patients, and China’s coal-to-liquids cuts.

Chemical Industry

Huntsman shareholders try to push through Hexion deal:
A group of hedge funds holding shares in US chemicals company Huntsman have offered to provide at least $500 million in funds to help finance the company’s takeover by Hexion. But Hexion parent company Apollo swiftly rejected the proposal, saying it ‘does not come close to making the combined company solvent’. In July 2007, Huntsman agreed to be bought by Hexion for $10.6 billion, but Hexion is now looking to back out of the deal, arguing that, because of Huntsman’s poor recent performance, the funding structure of the deal would render the combined company insolvent.

China chemical plant blast:
A series of explosions at a chemical plant in China has killed 20 employees, and left 60 others injured. A fire that broke out in a workshop on 26 August spread through the plant in Yizhou city, Guangxi province, causing the evacuation of 11,500 local residents in case of further explosions and chemical leaks. Chinese authorities say the blast did not cause serious pollution to air or water sources in the area.

Pharmaceuticals

Job cuts keep coming:
Belgian pharmaceutical firm UCB is cutting 2000 jobs - 17 per cent of its staff - in a bid to cut costs and improve profitability. The company says it plans to transform into a specialist company, focused on Central Nervous System and immunology disease areas.

King rebuffed:
Alpharma has rejected a $1.43 billion takeover offer from fellow US pharmaceutical firm King Pharmaceuticals - although King says it remains confident that a deal can be struck. The deal would expand King’s operations into the pain treatment market.

Roche part-funds eye drug:
Roche has agreed a deal to share the costs of its eye drug Lucentis with the UK National Health Service. Following an agreement with National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), the NHS will pay for the first 14 doses of the drug - used to treat wet age-related macular degeneration, the most common cause of blindness among the elderly - and Roche will pay for any further treatments that the patient requires. However, currently doctors often use closely related drug Avastin to treat the condition, which is approved to treat cancer and available much more cheaply.

GSK seals epilepsy drug deal:
GSK has announced a deal worth up to $820 million to develop and market an experimental epilepsy drug with US drugmaker Valeant. GSK will pay $125 million up front for retigabine, and up to a further $545 million if the drug reaches key development and sales milestones. Valeant could also receive $150 million based on the development of other compounds. Retigabine has already been tested in two large late-stage trials, and the two companies plan to file for US and European regulatory approval by early 2009.

Deaths halt cancer therapy trial:
Cell Genesys has stopped a Phase III trial of its prostate cancer treatment, GVAX, after 20 more patients taking the drug died than those in a control group. The cause of the deaths has not yet been established.

Organ transplant tool:
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a test to help doctors monitor organ rejection after transplant. The diagnostic test, called AlloMap and made by US firm XDx, measures gene expression in white blood cells, and can reveal patients least likely to reject a transplanted organ after surgery.

Barr wins Alzheimer’s drug ruling:
A US court has cleared generic drugmaker Barr to sell copies of Johnson & Johnson’s Alzheimer’s drug Razadyne. J&J maintains that the patent for the drug remains valid, and says it will appeal the decision. Barr first challenged the patent in 2005.

FDA fast-tracks Glivec:
The FDA is to fast-track its review of Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis’s cancer drug Glivec, completing the review in six months rather than 10. The drug is already approved to treat leukemia and gastrointestinal cancers, and has now been shown to reduce the risk of certain stomach and intestinal cancers returning after surgical removal.

Energy

China cans coal-to-liquids projects:
The Chinese authorities have ordered all but two coal-to-liquids fuel projects to be suspended, in a bid to ease pressure on coal supplies, which is driving up prices. South Africa’s Sasol says its joint venture feasibility study in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region is one of the two projects to survive the cuts. But a second Sasol project in Shaanxi will not proceed at this stage, the company says.

Agrochemicals

Bayer first approval:
Bayer says it has received the Romanian regulatory approval for thiencarbazone-methyl, its new active ingredient to control a range of weeds in corn fields. Bayer says it hopes this first approval will be followed by other European and US regulators, and is planning a 2009 launch for the product. Thiencarbazone-methyl is a new sulfonyl-amino-carbonyl-triazolinone, which will be mixed with isoxaflutole, an existing active ingredient.

DuPont expands seed research:
DuPont has opened two new research centres in Europe to develop crop traits for corn, sunflower and oilseed rape grown in Europe. The US firm is investing $5 million to establish the two new centres, which are based in Hungary and Italy.

No-one is going to fall off the back of their chair when I say that lighting a match in an atmosphere with no oxygen is impossible. However, knowing the exact levels of oxygen required to sustain fire is, it appears until now, something that has not been thoroughly scrutinised.

It may seem of little consequence on face value, but in Science this week, Irish researchers claim that the oxygen lower limit for combustion should be redefined from the existing level of 12% to 15% (the present day atmospheric oxygen level standing at 20.9%). If correct, the current hypotheses for two of the ‘big five’ mass extinction events in primordial Earth may have to be rewritten.

The experimental set-up was relatively self-explanatory – an 8m³ room equipped with hot plate, thermal imaging system and full atmospheric, humidity and temperature control. Experimental burns of pine wood, moss, matches, paper and a candle conducted at 20^oC revealed that none could maintain a flame in an atmosphere with less than 15% oxygen content.

With this result in hand and prior knowledge of the prevalence of wildfires throughout the Mesozoic period – 250 to 65 million years ago – the researchers were able to conclude that atmospheric oxygen levels throughout this period must have been 15% or greater. This contradicts previous reports that attribute two mass extinction events in this period to short-term deficiencies in atmospheric oxygen levels.

The researchers don’t hazard a guess at an alternative hypothesis for the mass extinction events, but if anyone has any good suggestions (that lack any alien involvement) let us know.