Peter Villax
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Peter Villax Member of the Board |
Born in Lisbon, in 1958, the first of four children of Ivan Villax, a chemical engineer of Hungarian origin and of Diane de Lancastre du Boulay, who together founded Hovione, a manufacturing company of active pharmaceutical ingredients, in 1959. He studied at the French Lycées in Lisbon and in London (1962-1976) and graduated in Politics and Economics (joint Master of Arts) at the University of Aberdeen (UK) (1977-1982).
He started his professional career as a trainee in the semi-conductor company International Rectifier (El Segundo, Cal.) and thereafter joined Hovione as a computer programmer. In 1989-90 he went to Japan with the EU-sponsored Executive Training Programme, learning Japanese and working for a major Hovione customer. He joined the Hovione Board of Directors after his return to Portugal, in 1991 and has devoted his career to the research and development of pulmonary inhalation therapies, becoming an inventor and a patentholder. Hovione is today a world-leading expert in the development of inhaled drug products with a major participation in the development of new drugs.
Affiliations:
• President of the Portuguese Family Business Association
• Member of the Board, Health Cluster Portugal
• President of the Intellectual Property Commission of the International Chamber of Commerce in Lisbon.
• Past Secretary (2003-2006) of COTEC.
Married, six children.
