+ Business

OUR Business Model

Companies seeking to commercialise new products must typically carry significant business risk and commit to major capital expenditure before customer demand is secured. We have reversed this traditional business model with the Unilife Ready-to-Fill Syringe by building a strong relationship with sanofi-aventis where they have paid us an upfront fee for the exclusive right to negotiate for the purchase of the Unilife Ready-to-Fill Syringe. They are also providing us with A$30 million in payments based on milestones to be achieved under the Industrialisation program for the commercialisation of the product. We have thus secured the upfront commitment of the world’s largest purchaser of prefilled syringes to support the successful completion of this project. Having now retained the right to market the product to other pharmaceutical companies for use in therapeutic areas outside of those desired by sanofi-aventis, we have also further de-risked our business model.

OUR Expanding Team

We have used the global financial crisis to our advantage by recruiting more than 35 high-calibre professionals to our team that in many cases would not have otherwise been available. Many of these new staff either came directly from competitors or had the industry background to recognise Unilife’s market potential. Our management team now has an average 20-plus years working with either the type of business we intend to become or the customers we service. Whilst Unilife may still be small in size, we have built the nucleus of a world-class team with the expertise to help us complete our strategic business plan and compete against global industry heavyweights.

OUR Global Partners

It’s one thing to know what you do well. It’s another thing entirely to know when to outsource something you do well. Unilife has built a core in-house capability around the design, development and validation of innovative medical devices, and the automated assembly systems used to manufacture them. Our decision to outsource the development of the automated assembly systems to manufacture the Unilife Ready-to-Fill Syringe to an established industry specialist reflects our understanding of the scale of the operational project as well as the significant resources required to meet projected demand. We are also focused on building strong, flexible supply relationships with a number of other trusted medical device and pharmaceutical companies.