Press Room

Press Clipping / Feb 25, 2021

Fire and evacuation drill at the pharmaceutical plant “Hovione”

News.Gov.MO, February 25, 2021

Fire and evacuation simulator at the pharmaceutical factory “Hovione” | Hovione

 
 

好利安藥廠火警疏散演習

Fire and evacuation simulator at the pharmaceutical factory “Hovione”

 

Firefighters fought the fire by the storage tank.

The Fire Brigade (CB) held on the morning of February 24th this year, a fire and evacuation simulator with dangerous chemical substances in the pharmaceutical factory “Hovione” together with Hovione FarmaCiencia SA, with the intention of intensifying the measures contingency and the coordination and communication mechanism between both parties in case of incidents.

The exercise simulated that a worker discovered that the leak occurred at the connection point of the methanol solution storage tank, thus causing a fire. The employee immediately sounded the fire alarm, the pharmaceutical factory's emergency and contingency team immediately proceeded to the internal contingency action, called the CB to ask for assistance and adopted security measures to evacuate the employees to the evacuation and meeting place. During the evacuation period, there was 1 worker who was injured. After becoming aware of the occurrence of a fire at the pharmaceutical factory “Hovione”, the CB immediately dispatched 9 emergency vehicles and 38 firefighters to the site to fight the fire, carry out the evacuation and search according to the defined plan, as well as provide nursing care for the injured and simulate transport to the hospital. The simulation lasted almost 1 hour.

CB and the pharmaceutical factory “Hovione” sent around 160 people to participate in the simulation, whose main purpose is to test the responsiveness and the communication mechanism between the relevant parties in case of incidents. The respective process went well, after the simulation, both parties held a review meeting, whose objectives and expected results were achieved.

[Translated from the original]

 

 
 

好利安藥廠火警疏散演習

為加強與好利安藥廠在發生事故時的應變措施及協調溝通機制,消防局於本年2月24日上午,與好利安製藥科學股份有限公司在氹仔好利安藥廠聯合舉行化學危險品火警及疏散演習。

演習模擬工作人員發現一個含有甲醇溶液的儲存缸接駁口出現洩漏並發生火警,工作人員隨即按動火警警報,藥廠緊急應變隊伍即時啟動內部應變計劃,同時致電消防局求助,以及採取安全措施疏散員工到逃生集合點,於疏散期間有一名員工不慎受傷。消防局接報好利安藥廠發生火警後,立即派遣9架緊急車輛及38名隊員趕赴現場,按照既定計劃進行滅火及疏散搜救行動,並對傷者進行即時護理及模擬送院,演習過程歷時約1小時。

消防局和好利安藥廠合共派出近160名人員參與是次演習,主要目的是測試發生事故時雙方的應變能力及溝通機制,演習過程順利,事後雙方進行檢討會議,並達到預期目的及效果。

 

 

Simulacro de incêndio e evacuação na fábrica farmacêutica “Hovione”

Os bombeiros combateram o fogo junto do tanque de armazenamento.

O Corpo de Bombeiros (CB) realizou na manhã do dia 24 de Fevereiro do corrente ano, um simulacro de incêndio e evacuação com substâncias químicas perigosas na fábrica farmacêutica “Hovione” em conjunto com a Hovione FarmaCiencia SA, com o intuito de intensificar as medidas de contingência e o mecanismo de coordenação e comunicação entre ambas as partes em caso de incidentes.

O exercício simulou que havia trabalhador que descobriu que ocorreu a fuga no ponto de ligação do tanque de armazenamento da solução de metanol, acontecendo assim um incêndio. O empregado tocou imediatamente o alarme de incêndio, a equipa de emergência e contingência da fábrica farmacêutica procedeu logo à acção de contingência interna, ligou ao CB para pedir auxílio e adoptou as medidas de segurança para evacuar os funcionários para o local de evacuação e encontro. Durante o período de evacuação, havia 1 trabalhador que ficou ferido. Depois de ter tido conhecimento da ocorrência de incêndio na fábrica farmacêutica “Hovione”, o CB enviou de imediato 9 veículos de emergência e 38 bombeiros ao local para combater o fogo, executar a acção de evacuação e busca conforme o plano definido, bem como prestar os cuidados de enfermagem junto do ferido e simular o transporte para o hospital. O simulacro durou quase 1 hora.

O CB e a fábrica farmacêutica “Hovione” enviaram cerca de 160 pessoas para participar no simulacro, cuja finalidade principal é testar a capacidade de resposta e o mecanismo de comunicação entre as partes pertinentes em caso de incidentes. O respectivo processo correu bem, depois do simulacro, ambas as partes procederam a uma reunião de revisão, cujos objectivos e resultados esperados foram alcançados.

 
Read the article at News.Gov.MO

 

 

 

 

Also in the Press Room

See All

The CDMO is preparing for its New Jersey facility to become fully operational this year. Hovione’s multimillion-dollar investment in expanding its East Windsor, NJ manufacturing site is quickly coming to fruition. Contract Pharma will be visiting the site later in April 2026 to provide a unique overview of what’s new. As a preview, the Contract Pharma team met with Hovione at the Drug, Chemical & Associated Technologies Association (DCAT) Week. David Basile, Vice President of Technical Operations—Americas, spoke at the opening Member Company Announcement Forum on March 23, 2026. In this interview, Basile expands on his remarks at the Announcement Forum. As he explains, Hovione is concentrating not only on New Jersey, but also on facilities in Ireland and Portugal. Contract Pharma: Good manufacturing practice (GMP) operations will soon be fully operational at the New Jersey facility. How has Hovione progressed through this process since the initial investment cycle was announced last fall—or even prior? David Basile: It’s been a really great journey and evolution over the last two to three years, conceiving the plan to grow our U.S. footprint. It was one of the reasons I came aboard with Hovione, to grow that footprint and build our commercial manufacturing prowess in the States. In New Jersey, we had originated [the site] as a tech transfer center. [But] we wanted to grow the organization to be more equivalent with our Portugal and Ireland sites, to do more large-scale manufacturing. So, this is part of that journey. And that’s not just bricks-and-mortar and machinery. It’s been people, talent, partnerships with clients, supporting functions such as QC [quality control] and analytical development. We’re growing our R&D teams as well. It’s a comprehensive approach to systems, people, and processes. CP: At the Member Company Announcement Forum, you ran through some of the major technical specifications of the NJ expansion. Can you talk about a few of the highlights and their capabilities? Basile: This year we’ll be starting up two PSD-3 scale spray dryers. This is a useful scale of machinery for our clients. It plays nicely between the PSD-2 and PSD-4 scales that we have elsewhere in the network. I’d say it’s medium-to-large scale capacity; we could do 30 metric tons annually out of this type of a unit. Product to product, that differs, but we do have products that put that kind of volume out in a PSD-3, so it’s not small-scale. Customers want to hear this because [they want to gain] efficiency with their batch size, and turnaround time. And when we campaign, we can really see significant throughput with this line up of new machinery and assets. The first machine that we will start up is a Hastelloy unit, which is unique. We took a pause [in the construction timeline] to make that upgrade, as we had a client that needed this configuration. There are additional clients that are interested in it too, because you can do acidic solutions and more aggressive kinds of formulations as well as solvent-based formulations. So that’s a unique element of that first machine. The second machine is being qualified later this year. Kind of a twin, but this one is standard 316 stainless steel.  CP: When a company brings a new or expanded facility online, new personnel often accompanies the new tech. What is the workforce addition that you expect, and what are the challenges of retaining top talent? Basile: In preparation for commissioning and startup of this new equipment, we’ve already ramped our headcount up, to be ready for GMP launch. We’ve added roughly 20 employees in preparation for this first machine to go [live]. Over the next 18-plus months, we could see something on a similar scale, getting us up to that 40–50 headcount range for that facility once it’s fully operational—and more later on in 2028, when we bring in the CDC [continuous direct compression] Flex unit. That’s what’s really going to be transformative about this new facility: that integrated offering coming to life. CP: Even if the NJ facility is top of mind right now, let’s also touch on some of your plans in Europe. What is your vision for expanding in Europe in the next two to three years? Basile: Ideally, Hovione’s aim is to build an equivalent manufacturing network, where clients can go to any site across the globe and get a similar breadth and scale of offering. We’re doing that now in Ireland, expanding our PSD-4 scale spray drying. One unit was recently installed. Late last year, it went live. Then there’s at least one other new PSD-4 in motion, which is really exciting, because [spray dryers] at this site were historically [exclusive to] larger chemistry manufacturing for API [active pharmaceutical ingredient] synthesis. So now, they’re further building their muscle with additional large scale spray drying capacity. On the Portugal side, there’s a lot of great things going on. Our Tejo campus, in Seixal, Portugal, is a massive, 4.5-million-square-foot plot of land, and there’s a new, modular facility going up there. It’s incredibly exciting. The design of the facility has been well-thought through with material flows [and] gravity-fed processes. Here, we minimize handling and [maximize] speed of processing. It’s scalable. We call each one of these building segments a finger. You can copy and paste these fingers, and they are built to house both spray drying and drug product assets within each unit. So, why is that relevant? Because we can easily scale the number of fingers. When customers say, “we need more capacity,” we have the design on the table ready to go. We know how to execute, we know how to build and implement our technology platforms in a short timeframe. Deployment timeframes are truly becoming more and more relevant to our clients. CP: From last year’s DCAT Week to this year’s, what conversations are you having with industry colleagues about ever-changing geopolitics? Basile: We’re seeing that local, regional manufacturing capacity is vital. The concept of U.S. for U.S. and China for China seems to be a common theme that our clients are talking about. We happen to have an edge, as we [have already] started our journey of expanding our domestic U.S. capacity. So I think that’s a crucial piece to the puzzle, having dual-sided Atlantic manufacturing operations. The traditional global supply chain model is being challenged. Having soup-to-nuts sites that are fully autonomous in development, scale-up, tech transfer, all the way to commercial scale operation, is vital to Hovione, and how we’re protecting our supply chain. [Concerning] starting raw materials and Tier 2 suppliers, our procurement teams are out in the market making sure that there’s no single point of failure for critical materials [like] polymers and solvents that we utilize. We’re managing and mitigating risk by looking at those secondary suppliers across different geographies. CP: Encapsulating your planned expansions on both sides of the Atlantic, how would you sum up the value to the customer? Basile: It’s about speed-to-market. It’s one partner from early-phase development, clinical scale, all the way through commercial. They gain comfort, trust, and not just capacity and equipment time; it’s also about competency and depth of scientific expertise. We’re not just a traditional CDMO. There’s unique expertise in particle science and spray dried dispersions that we offer our clients that they don’t have. [With] traditional CDMOs, customers typically pay for time in [a particular] unit, for example, they’d say: “I need a machine, and I need [it for] three weeks.” Hovione is truly a partner to our clients. They’re leveraging our platforms, our know-how in spray drying, and our know-how in equipment design. Read the article at ContractPharma.com  

Article

Hovione Eyeing Manufacturing Expansion on Both Sides of Atlantic

Apr 06, 2026

With key expansions coming to fruition on either side of the pond, specialist CDMO Hovione is making sure that drugmakers can access its particle engineering expertise across multiple geographies.  That flexibility will be key for the Portugal-based company in the coming years as the pharmaceutical industry continues to embrace more regional supply chains. In a recent interview, Hovione's David Basile, VP of technical operations for the Americas, discussed this trend and the manufacturer's expansion project, which is set to come online in New Jersey next month.  In the coming weeks, Hovione plans to debut a new spray drying expansion at its campus in East Windsor, New Jersey. The company has invested $100 million to expand its campus, including new construction and the acquisition of an additional facility and greenfield land.  Specifically, one of two pharmaceutical spray drying-3 units, or PSD-3 units, will come online in the coming weeks to tackle amorphous active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and amorphous solid dispersions, according to the company. With some 80% of new small molecules in development insoluble in water, Hovione’s particle engineering and amorphous solid dispersion platform helps medicine developers improve the solubility, bioavailability, and, in some cases, the stability of their drug candidates, Basile said.  The company boasts spray dryers from the lab scale to PSD3 at its original facility in East Windsor, in addition to the pair of large-scale machines about to be activated at the campus' new facility.  “We’re going for a single, unified site with capabilities across the campus to do drug substance through finished drug product under one governance and quality system,” - Basile told Fierce.   Read the full article at FiercePharma.com

Article

As expansions come online, CDMO Hovione aims to meet industry's 'dual supply and sourcing' zeal: exec

Mar 26, 2026