Unilife inks 15-year deal with Sanofi for wearable injectors

Alan Shortall, Unilife chairman and CEO

Unilife ($UNIS), the injectable technology provider, has inked a deal with Sanofi ($SNY) to be the French drugmaker's sole provider of cartridge-based wearable injectors for the next 15 years.

The deal is worth at least $50 million, the company said in a press release, and excludes Sanofi's insulins. The agreement is for devices used to deliver large dose volume drugs. Unilife can continue to enter into deals with other drug companies as long as Sanofi's nonexclusive access is maintained.

The wearable injectors market is expected to generate $8 billion in sales, averaging $24 a unit, by 2025, the company said. Sanofi has between 5 and 10 molecules to be delivered to patients using wearable injectors.

"Our wearable injectors are poised to generate substantial revenues and growth moving forward," Alan Shortall, Unilife's chairman and chief executive, said in a statement.

Unilife's wearable devices allow for a viable option for using large molecules. With its "peel, stick and click" steps of use, the device gives patients an at-home delivery platform for drugs. Normally, doses as large as 15 milliliters must be administered intravenously, but because self-administered delivery methods are becoming the norm, the biologics market is ready for a more patient-friendly option.

Sanofi earlier partnered with with Unilife for the use of its self-retracting automatic injectors. That deal had Unilife providing at least 150 million of those devices a year for use with Sanofi's line, including the blockbuster Lovenox for deep vein thrombosis.

- here's the release