Press Room

Press Release / Jan 12, 2015

Hovione appoints Filipe Gaspar, PhD as Vice President R&D

Loures, Portugal, January 12th, 2015 – Hovione today announced the appointment of Dr. Filipe Gaspar as Vice President of its Research and Development organization. Dr. Gaspar will lead teams based in Lisbon and New Jersey that serve our clients’ drug development projects; he will also be defining long-term product development strategies and collaborations. He will report to Guy Villax, Hovione’s Chief Executive.

“We are very pleased to have Filipe running our R&D. Filipe brings great science and leadership skills. For the last 10 years Filipe has been the driving force behind our Particle Engineering, and if we have four new drugs today on the market it is because he and his team made sure we had the right capabilities, knowhow and ability to deliver” said Guy Villax.

“I am honored to have the opportunity to lead this talented R&D team and help fulfilling our mission of serving our customers developing and delivering innovative medicines for patients”, said Filipe Gaspar.

Dr. Gaspar is the co-author and co-inventor of numerous publications, scientific presentations and patents. He is a Chemical Engineer from Instituto Superior Técnico (Lisbon) and has a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Birmingham. 

Dr. Gaspar joined Hovione in 2003 as a Manufacturing engineer and later became responsible for the technical leadership of spray drying technology. In 2004 Dr. Gaspar moved to R&D to start the Particle Engineering group, there he was involved in more than 120 projects from preclinical stage to commercial. During that period he was the Lead Scientist in four projects that reached commercial stage, including the first at Hovione submitted under Quality by Design. He was instrumental in many of the projects that contribute to Hovione’s growing success in Particle Engineering.  In 2012 he moved to a Business Development role and spent a year based in New Jersey.

 

About Hovione
Hovione is an international company with over 50 years’ experience in the development and compliant manufacture of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients and Drug Product Intermediates. With four FDA inspected sites in the U.S., China, Ireland, and Portugal, the company focuses on the most demanding customers, in the most regulated markets.  In the last 5 years it stood behind 1-2 NDA approvals each year, and its DMFs and CEPs are referenced in dozens of ANDAs and marketing authorization that are approved each year. The company also offers branded pharmaceutical customers services for the development and compliant manufacture of innovative new drugs.  It is able to support highly potent compounds and offers proprietary product development and licensing opportunities for drug products. In the inhalation area, Hovione is the only independent company offering such a broad range of services.

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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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