Unilife Surges on Wearable Injector Devices Pact with Amgen
January 4, 2016
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
YORK, Pa. – Unilife Corporation stock jumped more than 100 percent this morning after the company announced a new deal with Amgen to develop wearable injector devices.
Pennsylvania-based Unilife said it inked a non-exclusive deal with Amgen that includes a $15 million non-refundable deposit. According to Unilife, Amgen will use Unilife’s injectable devices for the delivery of its large and small volume products. Under terms of the deal, Amgen will pay Unilife for each device it manufactures.
Unilife’s stock is currently trading at 91 cents per share, up from about 50 cents per share at closing on Dec. 31. The stock has seen a steady decline over the course of the year from its high of $4.69 per share on Jan. 26, 2015. The stock decline has mirrored some troubles the company has faced over the past year, which resulted in a round of layoffs as well as having to seek a loan of $600,000 from its chief executive officer in order to avoid defaulting on its $60 million debt.
This morning’s deal could signal a turnaround for Unilife, which in September was forced to eliminate 50 employees and reducing operating expenses in an effort to focus its resources on the commercialization of its Imperium platform of insulin patch pumps. The layoffs are expected to reduce operating expenses in 2016, which includes a reduction of research and development costs by about 30 percent, Unilife said. The company said it expects to pay out approximately $400,000 in severance payments, which will be shown in the first quarter of the next fiscal year.
The Amgen agreement is building on Unilife’s plan to review and develop strategic partnerships.
Since 2014, Unilife has struck several deals to license its delivery systems. In November, Unilife struck a deal with MedImmune , a division of AstraZeneca , for the supply of a customizable wearable injectors for a monoclonal antibody in late-stage clinical studies in MedImmune's pipeline.
In October 2014, Unilife struck a deal with Sanofi to be the sole provider of cartridge-based wearable injectors for all of Sanofi's applicable large dose volume drugs to make Unilife's wearable injectors available to Sanofi's partners for use with applicable molecules under joint collaborations.
In December 2014, Unilife signed a 10-year commercial supply agreement with an undisclosed pharmaceutical company for the use of the Depot-ject delivery system with an approved ocular injection therapy.
In January 2015, Unilife entered into a $5 million strategic agreement with AbbVie Inc. for that company to use the Unifill Finesse prefilled syringe and the LISA delivery system for use with that company’s drug portfolio for the treatment of autoimmune diseases.