Press Room

Press Release / Jan 18, 2024

Hovione certified as a Top Employer in all of its manufacturing sites

Hovione has been recognized as a Top Employer in all four of its manufacturing sites, in Lisbon (Portugal), Cork (Ireland), East Windsor (NJ) and Macau.

Hovione has been recognized as a Top Employer in all four of its manufacturing sites, in Lisbon (Portugal), Cork (Ireland), East Windsor (NJ) and Macau.
Hovione is the first company to be certified as a Top Employer in Macau.
Hovione’s 3 other sites, who had achieved Top Employer status in 2023, showed improved results this year.

Lisbon, January 18, 2024, Hovione, the specialist integrated CDMO, leader in spray drying and particle engineering, is delighted to announce that it has been recognized as a Top Employer in all four of its manufacturing sites. Hovione is the first ever company to be certified as a Top Employer in Macau.

This marks a significant milestone in the company's commitment to fostering a supportive workplace environment and providing meaningful and rewarding roles for its team members. It also demonstrates that “One Hovione”, a company´s strategic initiative to give team members an equally high-quality experience across all locations, is delivering.

The certification program by the Top Employers Institute evaluates organizations through their participation in and outcomes of the HR Best Practices Survey. This comprehensive survey encompasses six domains and addresses 20 topics from Career Development to Leadership and from Employee Wellbeing to Equity & Inclusion and Wellbeing, amongst others. The program has certified and recognized over 2,300 Top Employers in 121 countries/regions across five continents.

"Hovione is a company committed to excellence and differentiation and being a Top Employer is an integral component of Hovione's People Strategy. I am pleased to see that our continuous improvement program, supported by Top Employer´s best practices benchmarks, resulted in our progressing along multiple dimensions at all our locations”, commented Ilda Ventura, Vice-President for Human Resources and Member of the Management Board of Hovione.

Macau Special Administrative Region

Douglas Lau, Human Resources Director for Hovione Macau, said that “It is a real achievement to be the first company in Macau to be a Top Employer. This demonstrates that companies in Macau can offer the same high quality workplace environment as anywhere else in the world. Coming so soon after Hovione was awarded the Medal of Merit from the Macau Government, it is also a further demonstration of how Hovione creates jobs that have real value to both our team members and the wider society.

Portugal

Catarina Tendeiro, HR Senior Director for Hovione Portugal, said that “We are thrilled to announce that Hovione has once again been recognized as Top Employer. This is a confirmation of our ongoing commitment to developing an exceptional workplace environment for our team members, who represent our most significant resource and our company´s main differentiator. I was especially pleased that this year’s report demonstrated improvement in several key areas, including Business and People Strategy, Leadership, Performance and Career and Learning. This demonstrates our desire to listen to feedback and to continue to improve our workplace experience.

USA

Erin Tetreault, HR Director for Hovione New Jersey said, “We are thrilled to announce that Hovione has once again been certified as a Top Employer. We believe that our people are our strongest asset and this certification demonstrates our ongoing commitment to create a workplace culture that goes beyond safety and quality and helps all team members to feel truly valued. I was especially pleased that this years’ report showed improvement in several key areas, including Leadership, Work Environment and Employee Wellbeing. This demonstrates our desire to listen to feedback and to continue to improve our workplace experience."

Ireland

Imelda Cummins, HR Director for Hovione Ireland commented, “We are delighted that Hovione has once again been certified as a Top Employer. Hovione´s team members represent our strongest asset and enable us to offer our customers the high-quality products and services that Hovione is known for. It also shows our ongoing commitment to developing a great workplace environment. I was especially pleased that this year’s report demonstrated improvement in several key areas, including Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Learning, Sustainability and Career Development. This demonstrates our desire to listen to feedback and to continue to improve our workplace experience.

About Hovione
Hovione is an international company with over 60 years of experience in pharmaceutical development and manufacturing operations. As a Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) it has a fully integrated offering of services for drug substances, drug product intermediates and drug products. The company has four FDA inspected sites in the USA, Portugal, Ireland and China and development laboratories in Lisbon, Portugal and New Jersey, USA. Hovione provides pharmaceutical customers services for the development and compliant manufacture of innovative drugs, including highly potent compounds, and customized product solutions across the entire drug life cycle. In the inhalation area, Hovione offers a complete range of services, from API, formulation development and manufacturing, capsule filling and devices.

Hovione's culture is based on innovation, quality and dependability. Hovione is a member of Rx-360, EFCG and participates actively in industry quality improvement initiatives to lead new global industry standards.

About Top Employers Institute
Top Employers Institute is the global authority on recognising excellence in People Practices. We help accelerate these practices to enrich the world of work. Through the Top Employers Institute Certification Programme, participating companies can be validated, certified, and recognised as an employer of choice. In 2024, Top Employers Institute has certified more than 2300 organisations in 121 countries/regions. These certified Top Employers positively impact the lives of over 12 million employees globally.

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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

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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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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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