Princeton, NJ and Pompey, France-Rockwood Specialties Group’s Dynamic Synthesis custom synthesis operation and Groupe Novasep SAS have announced their intent to merge operations to form a new company that will be part of Rockwood. The new company, which would have had 2003 revenues of approximately euro300 million ($375 million), will keep the Groupe Novasep name and headquarters in Pompey, France and Group Novasep founder and CEO Roger-Marc Nicoud will be president and CEO. Groupe Novasep’s Systems division designs and manufactures industrial chromatography systems and columns, including systems for batch preparative liquid chromatography, batch and continuous preparative scale supercritical fluid chromatography, and simulated moving bed chromatography (SMB). Its PPD division provides development and optimization of purification and synthesis processes and custom purification for products in the clinical phase, and its API Division produces and purifies intermediates and Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs). Dynamic Synthesis’ custom synthesis services and products for pharmaceutical intermediates consist of three businesses, including Finorga SA, a manufacturer of advanced fine chemical intermediates and APIs, specializing in chiral technologies such as asymmetric synthesis, enzyme resolution and multicolumn chromatography.