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Private company

Hovione

Logo: Hovione, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons3

Pharmaceutical company

Hovione is a Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) with services for drug substance, drug product intermediate and drug product. The company has four FDA inspected sites in the United States, Portugal, Ireland and China development laboratories in Lisbon, Portugal and New Jersey, USA. Hovione is also present in the inhalation area, and provides a complete range of services, from active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), formulation development and devices.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1959Founded1

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Hovione is a Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) with services for drug substance, drug product intermediate and drug product. The company has four FDA inspected sites in the United States, Portugal, Ireland and China development laboratories in Lisbon, Portugal and New Jersey, USA. Hovione is also present in the inhalation area, and provides a complete range of services, from active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), formulation development and devices. Hovione was the first Chemical/ Pharmaceutical Company to become a Certified B Corporation (certification), is a member of Rx-360 and EFCG.2

Corporate structure

Hovione sits at the top of its group. 2 entities, 2 countries on record. Switch between the flow chart and the network, and select any entity to see its details.

Built from subsidiaries, stakes and holdings from Wikidata (CC0); major holders from Schedules 13D and 13G. Each entity in the chart links to its source.

The story

Hovione was established in Portugal in 1959 by Ivan Villax with his wife, Diane Villax, and two other Hungarian refugees: Nicholas de Horthy and Andrew Onody, the first two letters of the three founders’ names: HO, VI and ON were used to create the name Hovione.

Hovione continues to be a privately held company with 5 plants - in Portugal (1969), Macao (1986), and New Jersey (2001) expanded in 2016, Taizhou in mainland China (2008) and Cork, Ireland (2009) - have a total reactor capacity of 1300 m³ and 1100 people worldwide. Since Hovione started operations in 1959, the company has patented more than 100 innovative chemical processes and produced industrially over 45 different APIs. All Hovione sites have been successfully inspected either by the FDA, the European Medicines Agency or the PMDA Japanese agency.

Hovione is a major source of semi-synthetic tetracyclines and corticosteroids, and is the largest independent supplier of contrast agents – these three families of compounds make up most of its generic product portfolio. The other half of the business focuses on exclusive projects including the development of innovator APIs and particle engineering.

From Wikipedia’s article on Hovione, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Products and brands

Hovione has two R&D centers with a team of over 270 scientists, one in Portugal - Loures and another one in its facilities in New Jersey. Hovione has international partnerships, including with Cambridge and MIT. In 2016, 7 PhDs were simultaneously running and it launched a scientific program named "9oW", which challenges scientific and academic communities to help overcome technological challenges. Also, Hovione is already the largest private employer of doctorates in Portugal (57 doctorates in Loures).

From Wikipedia’s article on Hovione, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Subsidiaries and ownership

Subsidiaries

From Wikidata.1

Timeline

  1. 1959Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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