Unilife Files Patents For Additional Ready-to-Fill Safety Syringe

Unilife Medical Solutions has filed patent applications in the US for a new ready-to-fill syringe product to be marketed as the Unifill Select.

The Unifill Select is a new product line that will complement the Unifill syringe, which Unilife is currently bringing to market with its major pharmaceutical customer. The Unifill syringe features a fixed-length retractable needle, and is primarily targeted for use with drugs such as anti-coagulants, multiple sclerosis and some vaccines where prefilled syringes with a standard fixed-length needle are used to administer a dose via subcutaneous injection.

The newly filed patent application for the Unifill Select product is designed to address the prefilled requirements of pharmaceutical companies that manufacture injectable drugs and vaccines indicated for administration via IM injection.

The company claims that the Unifill Select syringes will allow healthcare workers to attach needles of up to 1 ½ inches in length and inject the dose into the patient as per routine procedures for IM administration. Upon full dose delivery, the needle retraction mechanism is activated automatically with the operator being able to control the speed of needle withdrawal directly from the body into the glass barrel.

Alan Shortall, CEO of Unifill, said: “With the filing of patents for this new pipeline product, we have taken another significant step towards the achievement of this goal. We are particularly excited by emerging commercial opportunities for the Unifill Select, which we believe will help service the needs of pharmaceutical companies in fast-growing therapeutic markets such as vaccines. Discussions with a number of interested pharmaceutical parties have already commenced.”