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Press Clipping / Jun 21, 2021

Hovione meets increased demand during Covid

Irish Examiner, 21 june 2021

Hovione staff donating hand sanitiser to a St John’s Ambulance crew. Hovione donated 65MT free of charge to over 150 institutions with the help of charities, local community groups, private nursing homes, local hospitals, sporting clubs, and An Garda Síochána, who dispensed the sanitiser in Templemore Training Centre into smaller bottles for HSE-run nursing homes across the country.

Dr. Paul Downing, general manager of Hovione in Cork, reflects on the values driving the company’s years of global success.

When news of a global pandemic broke Hovione, a contract pharmaceutical manufacturing company which helps bring new and off-patent drugs to market, adapted and responded almost immediately. The sudden spike in demand for medicines and for Covid-19 specific treatments required unique mobilisation efforts across the entire Hovione network. “We needed to execute major capital expenditure projects at our sites, maximise operational efficiency, hire additional talent and quickly identify an external partner to expand our overall capacity”, explains Dr Paul Downing, General Manager of Hovione’s manufacturing plant in Cork.

The company, which employs 250 people in Cork and approximately 1,800 more at its other three sites spread over three continents with facilities in Lisbon (Portugal), Macau (China) and New Jersey (USA), has over 60 years experience in the development and compliant manufacture of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients and Drug Product Intermediates. Hovione began manufacturing hand sanitiser on site in March 2020 for the protection of their team members. Very quickly, they saw public demand grow and in keeping with the company policy of ‘Corporate Citizenship’ this led Hovione Cork to appoint a project team to bring the manufacturing of hand sanitiser to distribution. The hand sanitiser was made readily available for donation to help protect various facilities and institutions across Ireland. The first batch of hand sanitiser was collected for use at St. Stephen’s Hospital in Glanmire in Cork on April 20th. Hovione supplied the sanitiser across Ireland to nursing homes, care facilities, charities and hospitals. The company worked closely with An Garda Siochana to safely distribute hand sanitiser to the HSE — “we organised 65 metric tonne of hand sanitiser to be distributed freely nationally and within the community locally to GAA clubs, churches and other community-based organisations.

Dr. Downing says: “It gave all of us a sense of purpose during a difficult time.” Hovione distributed hand sanitiser free across all of their plants to support the local communities of each country they manufacture in. Dr. Downing explained that when the supply crisis ended in July 2020 the companies who would normally make these sanitising products were back in production so “we stopped and focused on other things”.

He said it was a great privilege to be a part of “this truly global response where we witnessed the pharmaceutical supply chain working together in an unprecedented fashion to treat patients and save lives. I think the global pandemic showed us how important and resilient the life sciences sector is”.

Hovione Cork which took over Pfizer’s former Loughbeg site in Ringakiddy in 2009 plays a significant and strategic role within the Hovione network. The company has seen rapid growth over the last 12 years expanding its production capacity to occupy three separate production buildings at the site.

Last September, in the middle of the Covid pandemic, Hovione announced a partnership with US-based Ligand.

This was to support manufacturing of antiviral Veklury for Covid-19 which meant the company needed to significantly ramp up the production output of Captisol leading to the announcement of 48 new jobs for Cork in October 2020.

Dr. Paul Downing explained that Captisol is used in the formulation of Gilead’s Covid-19 treatment Veklury and Hovione is the sole producer of this key enabling excipient. To meet Captisol demand associated with Veklury, Hovione was producing in one month the quantity it normally produced in a year.

Going forward Dr. Downing said Hovione has an ambitious plan to be the Number 1 innovative, integrated pharmaceutical solution provider to the global pharmaceutical industry by 2028.

“Our mission is to passionately turn any challenge into a solution by collaboration with our partners to develop great medicines. That is a company corporate goal so that requires all our facilities to grow and expand so this expansion plan is across the whole Hovione network including Lisbon, New Jersey, Macau and also obviously Cork”.

The company — which was founded by Ivan Villax with his wife Diane Villax in Lisbon, Portugal in 1959 — recently celebrated 62 years in existence.

“In short we give our customers what they cannot find elsewhere”, says Dr Downing who explains that customers come from the sectors of biotechnology, medium, speciality and large pharmaceuticals and generics pharmaceuticals.

Hovione he says has a unique value proposition.

“We have more than 15 years of experience in pharmaceutical spray drying and have produced hundreds of batches for clinical trials and commercial supplies”.

Sustainability is hugely important

Hovione was one of the first companies to sign up to Business in the Community Ireland’s new Low Carbon Pledge in 2018 to commit to cutting their carbon footprint, report annually on their progress and develop a credible roadmap towards a net-zero economy.

“Here at Hovione we continue to try and be contemporary, practical and pragmatic. We have a large footprint of a site here so we are investigating if we can install solar power.

“We continue to challenge ourselves in reducing our industrial footprint in terms of energy consumption, water consumption and waste generation so this Ligand product for instance that we worked on is very water-intensive and we did a lot of processing improvements in parallel to this huge ramp up to actually reduce energy, reduce solvent, reduce waste and reduce water. Sustainability is at the forefront of what we do and it starts at the very beginning with our R&D in Portugal.”

Dr.Downing says he notices when recruiting younger staff, in particular, they are asking ‘what is your sustainability philosophy, what are you doing to reduce your impact’ so you know it has to be real, it can’t just be gestures”. These concerns he says are embedded in Hovione’s core values and purpose — “sustainability is fully integrated into our business strategy”.

Overall Hovione’s steadfast growth is the result of an integrated synergy that allows the company to serve both the global markets and also to respond to specific customer demands when necessary. The company has a solid legacy of Corporate Social Responsibility — in 2018 Hovione became a Certified B Corp — becoming the first facility in Ireland to have received this Certification. The company’s ‘Safety First, Quality Always’ culture is also something staff are very proud of — “we nurture it each day so that we don’t take it for granted”.

In the coming years Dr. Downing said the company will continue to invest in additional capability and hire additional team members, launch and validate more new products.

He points out that the company is an active member of Biopharmachem Ireland, Cork Chamber as well as Business in the Community Ireland. Hovione sponsors and supports local community initiatives as well as establishing crucial links with the academic and training institutions through its support of STEM — initiatives to encourage take-up of subjects such as science, technology, engineering and mathematics — as well as MTU student placements and the Cork Training Centre.

“We are the first Chemical/Pharmaceutical Company integrating this innovative community of companies that use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. As a Certified B Corporation we want to contribute to redefining success in business meeting the highest standards of social and environmental performance, setting out team members for success and personal satisfaction and aspiring to use the power of markets to solve social and environmental problems.”

Promoting career growth, diversity and inclusion

“We employ 250 people and currently have 18 nationalities onsite”, says Dr. Paul Downing, general manager of Hovione’s manufacturing plant in Cork.

Hovione, he says, is a fast, challenging, and dynamic environment with great opportunities for people with all skill sets at whatever age.

Because the market demands different products, you can work on multiple products and multiple projects at the same time. That gives people a real diversity of experience.

“We like to have a balance between promoting from within and recruiting from outside, so if someone has the desire to move within the organisation, these opportunities arise”.

He says that Hovione is constantly developing its talent pool, and is a big supporter of and encourages apprenticeships for young people where they are given the opportunity to gain some very substantial and important skills, allowing them to take up roles as electricians, fitters, quality-control analysts, instrument technicians, as well as automation technicians.

The apprenticeship programme not only provides participants with the necessary technical and professional skills, but it also provides valuable teamwork experience.

“What we do find is that people can have very strong technical and academic skills, but their team collaboration skills require us to invest in further training.

“These skills would be automatically instilled in participants in the apprenticeships programmes.

“In complex and large organisations like ourselves, the interpersonal skills and an ability to work in small teams is important.”

Hovione works with Skillsnet and other local academic institutions to help build capabilities that can take advantage of the many career opportunities available.

“We continue to work with Munster Technological University, Cork Education and Training Board, University College Cork.

“We do college site tours and Masters students’ placements. We work with the IDA on the IBEC EOP programme which, before Covid-19, would see graduates spend six months with us and six months with our sister facility in Portugal, mostly working as process engineers or QC analysts.

“We are starting to think of ways to get more diverse employees, so just before the pandemic hit, we partnered with Ireland’s national autism charity AsIAm.

“They are working to create a society in which individuals with autism are empowered to reach their own personal potential and fully participate in society.

“We believe that there may be certain areas within our sector which are very data-intensive like QC, like engineering, which may present opportunities. We were audited to see if we were an autism-friendly workplace.

“We had to change a few things around, including adapting our cafeteria to ensure it had appropriate lighting and noise levels. Some of my team were given training and we hope to do some work with AsIAm post-Covid, and continue to celebrate diversity and inclusivity in the workplace.”

Read the article at IrishExaminer.com

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The podcast "The Next Discovery" is a six-episode series created by Observador, a leading portuguese digital newspaper and radio station, in partnership with Hovione. And what if some of the scientific discoveries that can improve the lives of millions of people were happening right now in Portugal? The Next Discovery. Listen to the first episode of the podcast here, featuring Diane Villax, co-founder of Hovione. [English transcription] Welcome to The Next Discovery. This is a series of conversations, created in partnership between Observador Lab and Hovione, an international pharmaceutical company of Portuguese origin, that will open the doors to its world and share real stories of science, innovation and global impact. Over six episodes, we will meet the people behind technologies that help develop and manufacture innovative medicines for the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies that improve the lives of more than 80 million patients every year. I am Nelson Ferreira and, in this first episode, we will discover how an unlikely story, which began in a basement in Lisbon, became a story of global leadership. To talk about this legacy, I have the honour of welcoming Diane Villax, co-founder and non-executive board member of Hovione, who at the age of 91 remains a living witness to this journey. Nelson Ferreira (NF): Welcome, Mrs Diane Villax. Let us begin our conversation in 1959. Hovione was born in an unlikely way, in a basement in Lisbon, founded by your husband, Ivan Villax, by you and by two other partners. How did you manage family life and, at the same time, the birth of a pharmaceutical company, all in the same space? I imagine that created some interesting logistical challenges. Diane Villax (DV): From the beginning, we decided that we would manufacture raw materials for the pharmaceutical industry, that is, the active ingredients of medicines. We had no money, so it had to start from our home, which was in a residential neighborhood in Lisbon. Right from the start, we divided the tasks. My husband, a brilliant Hungarian chemical engineer, would be the inventor, the producer and the salesman, while I would take care of all the administrative side: imports, exports, accounting and banks. I kept those responsibilities for at least 30 years. At the same time, we also thought about the values that would guide us over this long period: transparency, innovation, the pursuit of excellence and great consideration for everyone who would come to work with us over the years. NF: Very early on, your husband made it clear that Hovione would not compete on low price, but rather on quality and on solving complex problems. What was it like to apply this principle of rigour when resources were still scarce? Especially because, from day one, it always seems to me that your objective was global. The world would be your market. DV: From the beginning, we felt that Portugal, with a population of 10 million people, would not be a very significant market, and that the world would be ours. Perhaps we were a little naïve, because we were entering a global market that was already quite sophisticated. But the decision was made and we moved forward. We moved forward and were fortunate that Japan discovered us quite quickly. They came knocking on our door, because of course we did not have the means to knock on theirs. At that time, they did not manufacture; they only formulated, so they needed to buy raw materials. My husband had invention patents for independent processes and there were long discussions. They felt that our technology was good, our IP was very robust and our quality was excellent. This led to a cooperation that lasted 10 or 15 years and was very profitable for both sides, I believe. NF: In the 1980s and 1990s, Hovione took a more significant leap forward. What were the decisions, the technological bets or even the moments of greatest courage that allowed this small Portuguese company to become a leading multinational? DV: In 1982, after a successful inspection by the FDA, the regulatory authority in the United States of America, we entered the American market with our generic doxycycline antibiotic. The inventor’s patent had already expired and we had an independent manufacturing process. It was a huge, demanding and competitive market, but one that respects good service and quality. And it was indeed a major leap, because the market was so large that we had no real sense of what it would mean, and demand was much greater than what we were able to produce. I remember, it must have been the summer of 1983, many people probably had to postpone their holidays to the autumn or winter, because missing delivery deadlines was not an option. Later, in the 1990s, we entered a new business area: services. We realized that large American pharmaceutical companies, as well as small biotechs, were increasingly inclined to outsource the development work for new molecules. This is a very long period, which can take four, six or even 10 years — the development process for new molecules before they are approved by regulators and become commercial products. So we began to offer this development service, and it went very well. From there, we developed new technologies, such as spray drying, for poorly soluble molecules, because this could greatly increase their bioavailability. Today, this services area is our largest business segment. NF: Hovione today works with 19 of the world’s 20 largest pharmaceutical companies. How do you maintain the agile, pioneering spirit that was born in that basement, when today the company has 2,600 employees, more than 300 scientists, and has even become the largest private employer of PhDs in Portugal? DV: Agility has to be maintained. For example, during the pandemic, we suddenly received large, unexpected orders to manufacture a component of Remdesivir, which was the product authorized to help Covid patients. So agility has to be maintained, and we always maintain our quality. Today, with more than 60 years of history, clients come to us because they know they can count on our quality and on our responsibility to produce and deliver on time what they order. NF: There is another impressive figure here. Your products reach 80 million people every year and Hovione participates in up to 10% of the new medicines approved annually by the FDA in the United States. When you look at this impact, do you feel that the dream of 1959 has been fully achieved? DV: I think it has been far exceeded. When we founded Hovione, my husband, who was a scientist, simply wanted to have his own laboratory. But he never imagined that we would develop in such a way that, today, we are sought out by major international pharmaceutical companies, which frequently come to us. NF: This is a series about science, but it is also about people. And the rigour, ethics and long-term vision that Diane always brought to management are still present at Hovione. What message would you leave to the scientists who join Hovione today with the mission of finding the next discovery? From what I understand, Diane makes a point of welcoming them whenever they join the company. DV: Yes. Four times a year, twice in English and twice in Portuguese, I speak to the newcomers at Hovione, giving them a very brief account of our journey, our values, our objectives, our dreams, the challenges we faced and how we overcame them to get to where we are today. And I always recommend that anyone who joins this company must work with passion. They must work with passion and always remember that our work is to produce medicines for those who need them. We have the privilege of serving patients. We are a company that works for society. I think “In it for life”, which is our motto, has a lot to do with us, because we have been here for 67 years as a family company, and that is how we intend to continue for many good years to come. Above all, in the healthcare sector, there is a great advantage, because we can look at the long term. We do not have to think about stock market results every quarter, as public companies do. And, on the other hand, we are here precisely to give life to those who need it. “In it for life.” NF: At the age of 91, how does Diane herself maintain this passion and continue to make long-term plans? DV: Because I was a founder of this company. I see it progressing and developing successfully, so it is a joy for me. And I have a large family coming after me. I have six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, and I hope to leave the company to them so that they can continue it as I managed it. NF: That is truly inspiring. Mrs Diane Villax, thank you very much for sharing the memories and inspiration of this legacy, which remains very much alive. It was a privilege. This was the first chapter of The Next Discovery. In the coming weeks, we will continue to open the doors of Hovione to discover how Portuguese talent is leading the world, from complex chemistry to particle engineering, from respiratory therapies to next-generation biological medicines. You can listen to the next episodes on observador.pt and on your usual podcast platform.

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Podcast “The Next Discovery” (EP1) - From a basement in Lisbon to global impact

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Hovione is bringing momentum to the intranasal field after announcing that its lead single-use nasal dry powder device, developed in collaboration with Industrial Design Consultancy Ltd (IDC), is now available for commercial partnerships. The milestone marks the transition from prototype to a fully integrated intranasal drug delivery platform that spans Hovione’s end-to-end partnership capabilities–from API synthesis through advanced formulation and particle engineering to drug product manufacturing, including device supply and advanced analytical tools for nasal performance characterization. The platform’s single-use device is designed to be manufacturable at scale and to leverage existing advanced particle engineering and drug product manufacturing capabilities, a practical advantage that can shorten timelines to clinic and commercialization while reducing development risk and cost. The device’s patented mechanism supports targeted nasal deposition, including access to the upper olfactory region. This enables rapid systemic absorption and potential nose-to-brain delivery pathways that are increasingly important for CNS and emergency-use indications. Beyond the single-use format, Hovione and IDC are advancing a multi-dose variant to broaden applicability across dosing regimens and therapeutic areas. The collaboration is backed by an intellectual property portfolio and initial patent grants, positioning the platform as a turnkey option for pharma partners seeking a single integrated supplier for both drug substance and device. This development arrives as intranasal delivery gains traction for systemic, CNS and rapid-onset therapies. This is precisely the focus of the upcoming 4th Nasal Formulation & Delivery Summit, for which Hovione is a key sponsor. The annual summit unites formulation, delivery and product development leaders to tackle drug-device compatibility, translational preclinical models, and strategies for scalable, regulatory-ready intranasal programs. Hovione’s recent progress will be highly relevant to attendees looking to de-risk nose-to-brain and systemic intranasal programs. Read the full article at News-Medical.net

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News Medical Life Sciences, 1 June 2026

Hovione advances intranasal drug delivery with commercial-ready dry powder platform ahead of 4th Nasal Formulation & Delivery Summit

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Every year, the largest bank in Portugal, Caixa Geral de Depósitos recognizes some of Portugal’s brightest young minds through the Caixa +Mundo Awards, providing nearly €800,000 in scholarships to students as they pursue higher education. In this year´s edition, Caixa named the award bestowed upon students pursuing science for Diane Villax. This prestigious honor places Diane Villax among the award’s namesakes – a distinguished group of prominent personalities who have made notable contributions to Portugal´s socio-economic, cultural, political and scientific development over the last 50 years, such as António Ramalho Eanes, Mário Soares, José Saramago, Sophia de Mello Breyner, Leonor Beleza, Elvira Fortunato, Rui Nabeiro, Américo Amorim, and José Manuel de Mello. Diane Villax will also honor the seven scientific award winners by personally meeting with each of them, and following their journeys as future innovators and leaders. But this honor is about far more than one individual. It is a celebration of an entire organization and the people behind it. For 67 years, generations of dedicated teams have worked together with passion, purpose, and excellence to manufacture life-saving medicines and advance science that has a real impact on people. This recognition belongs to all of us.

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