Press Room

Event

DDF - 14th American Drug Delivery & Formulation Summit

Start

Monday, September 16, 2024 - 09:00

End

Tuesday, September 17, 2024 - 18:00

Location: San Diego, United States

Hovione presents the Biologics session delivered in the American DDF Summit, titled "Hovione Synthetic Sugars: Excipients Enhancing Protein Stability and Performance Across Bioprocessing", during the event, September 16-17

Hovione will be exhibiting at the American Drug Delivery & Formulation Summit (DDF), an event that brings together industry experts to address key challenges in pharmaceuticals, biologics, and device development. This edition features two days of presentations and networking opportunities with over 300 scientific leaders from pharma, biotech, and drug delivery sectors.

Don’t miss the chance to speak with our experts and learn how our extensive knowledge and experience can support your project from early stages of development to commercialization.

On September 16, don’t miss our Biologics session

Hovione Synthetic Sugars: Excipients Enhancing Protein Stability and Performance Across Bioprocessing

Process and formulation development for protein-based therapeutics needs to overcome several stress factors during bioprocessing, long-term storage of the bulk drug substance and of the final drug product. Stabilization of proteins against temperature, acidic pH, and shear stresses is crucial to maintain therapeutic efficacy and safety. Acidic conditions, common in viral inactivation and chromatography steps, can disrupt protein structure, while temperature exposure and shaking during mixing, transport, and storage can induce denaturation and aggregation. These destabilizing factors hinder the manufacturing, purification, and storage of protein therapeutics, leading to the loss of biological activity and potential immune responses.

To address these challenges, strategies such as using stabilizing excipients and optimizing buffer systems are commonly employed. Herein we present a platform of novel synthetic sugars as a solution for ensuring more robust biopharmaceuticals, with case-studies around the impact of adding these sugars to different model biomolecules under temperature, shaking and low pH stresses, showing that these can provide significant improvements in enhancing protein stability and manufacturing processes’ performance.

Session Highlights:

Overcoming the challenges of protein stabilization during bioprocessing.
Case studies showcasing enhanced stability under temperature, shaking, and low pH stresses.
Innovative solutions for improving the manufacturing and storage of protein therapeutics.

Schedule a meeting with our experts and discover firsthand how our innovative platform of synthetic sugars can improve the development and delivery of your biopharmaceuticals, ensuring optimal stability and manufacturing processability performance.

Eunice Costa, Ph.D.

R&D Director

Eunice Costa joined Hovione in 2011 and currently leads the Research & Development activities in the field of Advanced Drug Delivery at Hovione. As Director, she is accountable for formulation and manufacturing process development as well as medical device design for advanced drug delivery modalities, supporting Pharma partners pushing forward innovative and generic medicines.

Since joining Hovione, Eunice has been actively researching the impact of particle engineering, particularly spray drying, formulation composition and processing on performance, stabilization and disposition of medicines, particularly biologics, supervising multiple PhD and MSc thesis. Prior to that she has held positions as junior researcher in organizations such as Genentech, TNO and academia. Eunice is a PhD in Bioengineering Systems from the MIT-Portugal program, during which she has investigated polymer synthesis and processing for biological applications.

Schedule your meeting today and find out how we can support your project.

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A mechanical engineering graduate, this Frenchman is the CEO of the Portuguese pharmaceutical contract manufacturer Hovione. Still owned by the founding family, the company was awarded the 2025 ‘Léonardo de Vinci’ Prize, which recognizes the innovative and successful succession planning of family businesses. With an international career behind him, Jean-Luc Herbeaux is almost more fluent in English than in his native language. At 58, this Frenchman with iceberg-blue eyes is the CEO of Hovione. Founded in the late 1950s, this Portuguese group, with 100% family ownership, has just received the ‘Léonardo de Vinci’ Prize, which highlights entrepreneurial successes tinged with family legacy. While this mid-sized company with a turnover of €500 million maintains a low profile, its pharmaceutical contract manufacturing business is just as obscure to the general public. "Yet, the market for contract manufacturers, or 'contract development manufacturing organizations,' is worth $200 billion", emphasizes the CEO, who has been working in this microcosm for two decades. 500 patents Aware of the stakes, he does not deny "the pharma industry's dependence on Indian and Chinese capabilities". "The fact remains that the trend is toward the regionalization of supply chains, with European manufacturers producing for the Old Continent, American manufacturers for their own market, and so on", he says. And to highlight the foresight of Diane and Ivan Villax, the founding couple, "who thought globally from the very beginning". As a result, the group, with its 500 patents, has factories in China, the United States, and Ireland, without neglecting its home territory. This is evident by the site currently under construction on the banks of the Tagus River, following a €200 million investment. "The heavy engineering and compliance aspects are being finalized, "he explains, emphasizing that this highly regulated sector "is under a microscope". He knows this all too well, as Hovione claims to be involved in 5 to 10% of the drugs approved each year by the FDA, the American drug regulatory agency. Professor from Houston to Japan “In this small world, having a good image is important: this is the case with Jean-Luc, passionate about his work, but who knows how to demystify things”, observes Elie Vannier, former chairman of the board of Hovione. He adds that having an international profile is a strength “in this ecosystem where talent and clients are international”. For his part, Jean-Luc retains from his numerous flights “a taste for films of all genres and from all countries”. The son of an administrative employee in secondary schools and an auto insurance expert, the youngest of three children moved around according to his parents' job transfers. He was born in Meaux, grew up in Chartres, and attended the University of Technology of Compiègne, “which already offered programs abroad”. Thus, he left a mechanical engineering internship at a Dior perfume factory to join the University of Houston in Texas, "carrying a 20 kg backpack". Despite his then-limited command of English, he earned a doctorate, became a professor, and met an American woman who would become his wife and the mother of their two children. Next came the University of Kanazawa in Japan. Alas! Disappointed by the academic world, "where you have to fight to get resources", he succumbed to the allure of industry and joined the American chemical company Rohm and Haas, which had fallen under the control of the German company Evonik. 80 million patients He spent twenty years there, in Germany and Singapore, before "accepting the offers from headhunters". He then accepted Hovione's offer, who appointed him Chief Operating Officer in 2020, then CEO two years later, making him the first CEO not from the founding family. The family remains the sole shareholder, which earned the company the ‘Léonardo de Vinci’ Prize, created by the Association Les Hénokiens and the Clos Lucé. Having settled near Lisbon, he substituted walking for combat sports, "having been burned by the injuries of some friends". He also mentioned that Hovione, whose clients include 19 of the world's 20 largest pharmaceutical companies, helps treat more than 80 million patients. (Translated version) Read the original and full article in French on LesEchos.fr

Article

Les Echos, 2 December 2025

Jean-Luc Herbeaux aims to boost the growth of the pharmaceutical group Hovione

Dec 02, 2025

The CDMO’s New Jersey manufacturing site expansion will eventually cover more than 200,000 square feet. Portugal-based contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) Hovione has completed an initial $100 million investment round in its East Windsor, New Jersey site. Once completed it will increase the facility’s footprint to more than 200,000 square feet and more than double its capacity for spray drying. Hovione CEO Jean-Luc Herbeaux said: “Since launching our New Jersey operations in 2002, Hovione has been one of the longest established European CDMOs in the United States. “This investment reinforces Hovione’s leadership in spray drying – a core technology platform where we have built extensive know-how and capabilities. By continuing to advance our platforms and expand capacity in the US, we are strengthening the foundation that enables our partners to bring complex medicines to patients more efficiently.” Spray drying is an increasingly important particle engineering technology for improving drug bioavailability through the amorphous solid dispersion (ASD) that can address bioavailability or crystallisation challenges. The initial phase of Hovione’s expansion will include a 31,000-square-foot building to house two size-3 spray dryers (PSD-3) designed for ASD production. Construction at the New Jersey site is already underway and the company plans to start GMP operations in the second quarter of 2026. The initiative is part of Hovione’s long-term strategy to grow its US operations and enhance its integrated drug substance, drug product intermediate and drug product capabilities. Herbeaux said: “This investment addresses growing customer demand for US-based capacity and integrated solutions that shorten development timelines and reduce tech transfer complexity. By consolidating development, scale-up, and commercial manufacturing within a single quality and governance framework, we provide customers with seamless execution from drug substance to drug product.” The company’s New Jersey expansion fits into its wider international growth plan that also includes capacity investments in Ireland and Portugal as it seeks to create a network of autonomous sites spanning the development and commercialisation of APIs, drug product intermediates and drug products. Read the full article at EuropeanPharmaceuticalReview.com

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European Pharmaceutical Review, 4 November 2025

Hovione doubles spray drying capacity with $100m US investment round

Nov 04, 2025

US-base manufacturing and the continued rise of peptides were among the key themes for CDMOs at CPHI Frankfurt 2025. Andrew Warmington reports. Hovione announced during this show that it has completed an initial $100 million investment phase in the expansion of its manufacturing footprint in East Windsor, New Jersey. The company was one of the first European CDMOs to set up in the US back in 2002. CEO Jean-Luc Herbeaux said that when he took over the role four years ago, Hovione's footprint in the US was limited and the site was reaching capacity limitations. (...) Read the full article on SpecChemOnline.com

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Speciality Chemicals, Nov./Dec. 2025