CONTRACT DRUG manufacturer Hovione yesterday formally opened its operation in Ringaskiddy.

The Portuguese company has acquired the former Pfizer plant at Loughbeg, outside Cork, and, with assistance from IDA Ireland, will employ 50 people by the end of the year, rising to 80 by mid-2011.

Hovione chief executive Guy Villax said the Cork plant would allow the company to address a large number of chemistries, and he expressed confidence that the company had the right team to succeed in servicing its customers from Cork.

“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 cannot do – and it is for those reasons that we are now in Cork,” he said.

Chief financial officer Miguel Calado said the group decided to have a site in Cork because of the region’s “high concentration of API [active pharmaceutical ingredients] production, its vast and deep talent pool and its excellent good . . . record with the health authorities”, he said.

Established in Portugal in 1959 by three Hungarians, Nicholas de Horthy, Ivan Villax and Andrew Onody, Hovione is headquartered in the Lisbon suburb of Loures and also has plants in the US and China.

IDA Ireland chief executive Barry O’Leary yesterday expressed confidence that Ireland will continue to attract investment from the pharmaceutical sector.