Hovione, a specialist in spray drying and particle engineering, has announced it’s expanding its industrial facilities around the world to support growth objectives. The company has been on an expansion track since 2016 in Portugal, Ireland and New Jersey, it says, and is aiming to increase its capacity and capabilities to address customer needs.
The announcement of a $170m investment in Hovione units in Portugal, Ireland and New Jersey, leading to a global capacity increase of approximately 25%, was made at CPhI Wordwide, in Milan, by Guy Villax, CEO, and Jean-Luc Herbeaux, COO.
These investments will be used to support growth in the company´s pharma custom development and manufacturing service business, fuelled by growing demand for the company’s integrated and differentiated services in drug substance manufacturing, particle engineering and, most recently, drug product manufacturing. The expansion will go hand-in-hand with the creation of more than 300 jobs globally. This strategy is planned to allow the company to continue to address difficult-to-meet client needs.
In the USA, Hovione will add a 2900 sqm building next to its current facility in East Windsor, New Jersey, laying the foundations for a company campus. The upcoming cycle of investment will bring additional commercial spray drying capacity online by 2023.
The capacity and capabilities of the company’s Cork site in the Republic of Ireland will also be upgraded to enable the production of HPAPIs and to facilitate onboarding of drug substance manufacturing projects of all sizes. The investment is aimed to create an ecosystem in which large customer projects can find a home by connecting to the existing infrastructure and equipment. The site will also receive a commercial size spray dryer to support the growing demand for particle engineering services.
In Portugal, Hovione is ready to start operations of its most recent facility with an increase in chemical synthesis capacity for HPAPIs. The building is also prepared to receive a commercial spray dryer to respond to the future needs of the global drug market.
“Hovione is in it for life and what better way to manifest this than through expansion of our global capacity and capabilities. Our sustainable organic growth strategy will allow us to keep true to those values that have been guiding us for more than 60 years,” said Guy Villax, CEO.