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Chemicals and the Economy

45-year shortage of babies hits Europe’s chlorine/PVC demand

Companies and investors often say “we don’t need to think about demographics – its too far in the future to matter”. This might have been true 20 years ago, but not today.  As European chlorine industry demand confirms, the truth is that “history catches up with us”. The reason is simple.  Europe stopped having enough […]

Global chemical recovery starts to slow

At the mid-year point, its interesting to look at the performance of the total chemical industry, including pharmaceuticals. The chart, from the American Chemistry Council, shows global demand has now recovered to 2008 levels. Pharma is more recession-proof than other parts of the industry, as people still become ill and need treatment. In terms of […]

Sir James Black dies

The death of Sir James Black, Nobel Prize winner and one of the giants of the modern pharmaceutical industry, has been announced this week. He began work at the blog’s former company, ICI after the War. The idea was to build on the success seen with drugs such as penicillin. It was, as we know […]

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