The site adds 427 cubic meters of capacity to the firm’s current 810 cubic meters.

Hovione will acquire Pfizer’s Loughbeg API site in Cork, Ireland. The deal is scheduled to be completed by April 2009. The Cork facility will employ 70–80 staff.


Over the next two months, it will transfer products from its Loures, Portugal site as well as validating processes for compounds expected to get approved. Hovione will also continue to provide manufacturing services for Pfizer. The facility produces intermediates for Lipitor API.


“We have been investing heavily in R&D for over six years and now have a strong development pipeline but have not invested in manufacturing assets since 2001, so it was time that we expanded our manufacturing capacity,” explains Miguel Calado, CFO at Hovione.


The plant adds 427 cubic meters of capacity to Hovione’s total 810 cubic meters. The multipurpose plant addresses a large number of specialized chemistries such as hydrogenation and low-temperature chemistry.


“This site offers everything that our customers might want: large-scale capacity, the highest standards in a location where tax benefits are available to them, and a well-trained, innovative workforce,” adds Calado.


Hovione believes that having the right kind of capacity in Cork will help it better serve its innovator customers when it comes to making APIs for their new product introductions. “We have been manufacturing in China for over 25 years—we know very well what China can do for the Pharma industry but we also know what it can’t do—and it is for those reasons that we are now in Cork” remarks Guy Villax, CEO.


“The Cork site, the New Jersey Technology Transfer Centre, Loures in Portugal, and Taizhou and Macau in China now provide Hovione with the right range of capabilities in the correct geographies—every site meets FDA requirements for APIs but every site is suited to a different and well defined mission.”

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