Hikma Pharmaceuticals has signed a long-term commercial supply contract with Unilife Corp. for the use of Unifill prefilled syringes with a range of generic injectable drugs. Under the 15-year global agreement, Unilife will supply Hikma with customized prefillable delivery systems from its Unifill platform, including the Unifill syringe and the Unifill Nexus.
 
Hikma has selected an initial 20 generic injectable products to be used with Unifill products and will have exclusive global rights to Unifill products for these specific products. Additional injectable drugs may be added to the exclusivity list. Unilife will supply Hikma with a minimum volume of 175MM units per year following a rapid high-volume ramp-up period. Unilife will receive $40 million in upfront and milestone payments.
 
Said Darwazah, chief executive officer of Hikma, said, “This agreement supports our strategy of developing higher value products and we are extremely pleased to be partnering with Unilife to develop our generic injectables capabilities. We look forward to leveraging Unilife’s innovative platform of Unifill syringes to differentiate our injectable products and to increase our market share.”
 
Alan Shortall, chief executive officer of Unilife, added, “Unilife has developed a full range of innovative and highly differentiated syringes under our Unifill platform to accommodate the needs of all prefilled biologics, drugs and vaccines. This strategic partnership with Hikma enables us to rapidly penetrate the large and fast-growing market for generic injectables. Hikma is one of the world’s fastest growing pharmaceutical companies, and a top three supplier by volume in the $7 billion U.S. market for generic injectables. Together with our recently announced long term supply contract with Sanofi, this partnership with Hikma instantly positions Unilife to become one of the largest suppliers of prefilled syringes in the world.”