Hovione invests millions in Portugal
The Portuguese pharmaceutical company Hovione is to invest €150 million in expanding its factories.
Around €75 million will be invested in Portugal while the rest will be spent in the US and Ireland. The expansion should create around 300 jobs and generate growth of 10% per annum.
In an interview with Jornal de Negócios, Guy Villax the CEO of Hovione said “maintaining the same degree of ‘Portugality’ would have been counterproductive for the growth of the group which is increasingly becoming an multinational company”.
He also warned that the “avalanche of investment” from the EU’s RRP programme could create a strong upwards pressure on costs because of a lack of manpower and capacity.
The drug company is planning to build a new factory in Seixal on the South bank of Lisbon’s River Tagus which will cost around €200 million.
Hovione, a global leader in spray drying and particle engineering, announced that it would be expanding its industrial facilities around the world to support its ambitious growth objectives, on 11 November.
The company has been on an expansion track since 2016 in Portugal, Ireland and New Jersey with the aim of continuing to increase its capacity and capabilities to address customer needs.
The announcement of a US$170 million (€150 million) investment in Hovione units in Portugal, Ireland, and New Jersey, leading to a global capacity increase of approximately 25%, was made at CPhI Worldwide, in Milan, by Guy Villax, CEO, and Jean-Luc Herbeaux, COO.
These investments will be used to support growth in the company´s pharma custom development and manufacturing service business, fuelled by strongly growing demand for Hovione´s integrated and differentiated services in drug substance manufacturing, particle engineering and most recently drug product manufacturing.
The expansion will go hand-in-hand with a build-up of Hovione´s global team with the creation of more than 300 new jobs globally. This strategy will allow the company to continue to address difficult-to-meet client needs while reinforcing its commitment to the Hovione values and standard of quality.
In the USA, Hovione will add a 2900m2 building next to its current facility in East Windsor, New Jersey, laying the foundations for a state-of-the-art Hovione Campus.
The upcoming cycle of investment will bring additional commercial spray drying capacity online by 2023. Further investments will follow with the aim to solidify the company´s integrated offer: API – Particle – Drug Product in the region. This expansion will allow Hovione to accompany existing and new customers favouring US-based manufacturing through their development cycles all the way to commercial.
The capacity and capabilities of Hovione´s Cork site in the Republic of Ireland will also be upgraded to enable the production of Highly Potent Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (HPAPI) and to facilitate onboarding of Drug Substance Manufacturing projects of all sizes.
The investment will create an ecosystem in which large customer projects with unique technologies can find a home by connecting to the existing infrastructure and equipment. The site will also receive a new commercial size spray dryer to support the growing demand for particle engineering services.
In Portugal, Hovione is ready to start operations of its most recent facility with an increase in chemical synthesis capacity for High Potency Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (HPAPI). The building is also prepared to receive a new commercial spray dryer to respond to the future needs of the global drug market.
“Hovione is in it for life and what better way to manifest this than through expansion of our global capacity and capabilities. Our sustainable organic growth strategy will allow us to keep true to those values that have been guiding us for more than 60 years”, says Guy Villax, Chief Executive Officer.
“These investments reinforce our integrated specialised offer globally, providing our clients with a line of sight for their projects. Focus is placed on facilitating and speeding up the drug development cycle and launch, by providing API manufacturing, Particle Engineering and Tableting services in each site.
Our strategy continues to be to grow organically via investments in our existing sites, which are designed for purpose. This reduces the complexity associated with the growth journey and allows us to focus our management attention on what counts most, i.e., guaranteeing that our clients go to market with quality, safe and effective medicines for their patients”, says Jean-Luc Herbeaux, Hovione’s Chief Operation Officer.
Hovione is an international company with over 60 years of experience as a Contract Development and Manufacturing Organisation (CDMO) and is currently a fully integrated supplier offering services for drug substance, drug product intermediate and drug product.
With four FDA inspected sites in the USA, China, Ireland and Portugal and development laboratories in Lisbon, Portugal and New Jersey, USA, the company provides branded pharmaceutical customers services for the development and compliant manufacture of innovative drugs including highly potent compounds.
For generic pharmaceutical customers the company offers niche API products. Hovione also provides proprietary product development and licensing opportunities for drug products. In the inhalation area, Hovione is the only independent company offering a complete range of services.