Hovione Holding AG has appointed Stefan Doboczky as chief executive officer, effective April 1, 2027, moving the company’s current board chairman into its top operating role.
Doboczky has served as chairman of the family-owned pharmaceutical technology and services group since 2024. He will step down as chairman when he becomes chief executive, following a succession process conducted by Hovione’s board of directors.
He will succeed interim co-chief executives Marco Gil and António Almeida, who will continue leading the company and executing its strategy until his arrival. Hovione’s board thanked Gil and Almeida for their ongoing leadership during the interim period.
Doboczky is returning to the pharmaceutical industry after more than a decade in senior industrial-company roles. He spent over 17 years at Royal DSM, rising to a role on the executive board with responsibility for the group’s global pharmaceutical portfolio and its growth in Asia.
He later served for 11 years as chief executive of listed, private-equity-owned and corporate-owned industrial businesses, including Lenzing AG, Heubach GmbH and Borealis AG. After Borealis combined with Borouge and NOVA Chemicals to form Borouge International, he became chief commercial officer and deputy chairman of the merged company’s executive board.
Doboczky is scheduled to transfer those Borouge International responsibilities to a successor on Oct. 1, 2026, and remain available for six months to support the transition before assuming the Hovione role.
Hovione is a contract development and manufacturing organization with more than 2,600 employees and four FDA-inspected production and research sites in Europe, the United States and China. The company provides development and manufacturing services for drug substances, drug-product intermediates and finished drug products.
The company has operations in the United States, Portugal, Ireland and China, along with development laboratories in Lisbon and New Jersey. Its services cover innovative and highly potent compounds, customized drug-product solutions and inhalation products.
Doboczky holds a master’s degree in technical chemistry and a doctorate in natural sciences from Vienna University of Technology, as well as an MBA from IMD in Lausanne.