Unilife Begins Development Of Global HQ, Production Facility In Pennsylvania

Unilife Medical Solutions (Unilife) has signed agreements for the construction of its new global headquarters and commercial production facility in York, Pennsylvania. The medical device production facility will be situated at 250 Cross Farm Lane in York and the 165,000 square foot development is projected to be ready for operations by late 2010.

The company has been exploring a number of potential opportunities in order to accommodate its projected pharmaceutical demand for its Unifill range of ready-to-fill (prefilled) retractable syringes.

The new facility will be developed on a 38 acre of industrial land with an expected total project cost of $26m, which will be funded by a combination of debt and cash reserves.

Stage one of the new facility is designed to accommodate Unifill automated assembly lines with a combined annual capacity of 360 million units per year, as well as the Unitract 1ml automated assembly line and other contract manufacturing systems, currently situated at Unilife’s Lewisberry facility.

It will also include a 54,000 square foot office section that will function as Unilife’s global headquarters and support administrative, marketing, new product development, quality laboratories and other operational functions of the company.

The new facility has been designed to allow for an additional 100,000sft of production space to be readily constructed at a later date by the Unilife Group. Upon this additional expansion occurring, it will provide Unilife with the necessary space to produce up to one billion syringes per annum via installation of additional Unifill assembly lines.

Although this additional expansion of the new facility forms part of the current planning approvals that have been received by the Unilife Group, it is not part of the current development activity and it is not covered or included in the current contracts that have been entered into, in respect of the new facility.

Alan Shortall, CEO of Unilife, said: “Our new global headquarters and production facility that is now being developed in York, Pennsylvania will give us the required flexibility to rapidly expand our business as we move towards a NASDAQ listing, commercial production and the signing of supply agreements with current and future pharmaceutical customers.

“This world-class facility now under construction has been custom-designed to meet the highest standards of the international pharmaceutical industry. The operational efficiencies and material flow dynamics that have been incorporated into the design of this facility will facilitate the production of our products to the highest quality standards. This will enhance our industry credentials and our position to become a reliable and trusted supply partner to global pharmaceutical leaders.”