Press Room

Press Release / Mar 19, 2018

Hovione reports on recent capacity expansion and future plans to support growth

Hovione reported today recent capacity expansion and future plans in its sites in Portugal, Ireland and New Jersey.

Loures, Portugal, March 19, 2018 – Hovione reported today recent capacity expansion and future plans in its sites in Portugal, Ireland and New Jersey, with the aim to: increase capacity in existing technologies, like spray drying and grow in new areas of business to support its clients demand.

The capacity expansion program started in 2016 and will continue in the coming five years. In the first two years, Hovione has relocated its development services to a new centre with 7.000 m2 in Lisbon, fifteen minutes away from the Loures manufacturing site, fully equipped with the most recent tools where Hovione is able to handle potent and highly potent compounds. The new building hosts 200 scientists from the chemistry, particle engineering, formulation and analytical development areas.

In this period, Loures site expanded its drug substance reaction vessel capacity with a small scale production area and a new pilot plant, totalling additional 30 m3 of capacity. In addition, one pilot and two large scale spray dryers were installed at the site and started the operation of a new drug product centre equipped with oral dosage form and inhalation manufacturing capabilities.

During the same time, Hovione doubled the size of its development and manufacturing operations in the New Jersey site, providing it with a full range of capabilities, from chemical & analytical development, through spray drying to formulation. The site now hosts 14 m3 of reaction vessel capacity with four independent trains, a pilot and a large scale spray dryer and a continuous tableting unit.

In the Cork site, Hovione is reinstating and renewing a production building with 157m3 of chemical synthesis capacity devoted to contract manufacturing.  About half of this capacity will be ready for operation by May 2018.

Over the next three years Hovione will add to the Loures site a new chemical synthesis and spray dryer building for contract manufacturing, with a total area of 4,200 m2 for 165m3 of reaction vessel capacity and two large spray drying units, new formulation facilities that will enable the production of bigger batch sizes and a new building that will host additional 1200 m2 of analytical laboratories.

This investment effort is being paired with recruiting and training new staff clearly illustrated by a 39% headcount growth in the last 2 years.

 “This addition in capacity expansion will secure our growth and ensure that we continue to provide a truly integrated full-service solution to our customers, as well as showing Hovione’s strategy and commitment to further strengthen its global market leadership in Spray Drying” said Frédéric Kahn, Vice-President Marketing & Sales.

“This capacity expansion plan is far more than a matter of production capacity solely. It aims to reorganize sites with new buildings, renew existing facilities and give operations the most advanced equipment in the market, to provide our customers and team members with the technology and the capacity they need to grow in a sustainable way. It is a significant effort and commitment from Hovione to stay ahead of and prepare for future demand.” said Nuno Almeida, Vice-President of Engineering.

 

About Hovione
Hovione has over 57 years of experience as a CDMO and is currently a fully integrated supplier offering from drug substance to drug product intermediate to drug product. With four FDA inspected sites in the US, China, Ireland, and Portugal, and development laboratories in Lisbon and New Jersey, the company provides branded pharmaceutical customers services for the development and compliant manufacture of innovative drugs and is able to support highly potent compounds. For generic pharmaceutical customers the company offers niche off-patent API products. In the inhalation area Hovione is the only independent company offering a complete range of services. 

Also in the Press Room

See All

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  

Press Clipping
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  

Article
Speciality Chemicals, Nov./Dec. 2025

Coming to America - Drug Product Focus

Nov 01, 2025

Also in Events

See All