May 22, 2007 -- Australian medical sharps safety producer Unilife Medical Solutions Ltd has signed a $A20 million ($US16.4 million) manufacturing agreement with a US developer of similar products. Unilife announced today that it would build blood collection devices for Kentucky-based MedPro Safety Products and expected revenues of about $20 million over five years from the pact.

Unilife said there was potential for the projected income stream from the deal to double. MedPro has a contract with a major European-based multinational medical company to supply a minimum of 100 million blood collection devices over a five-year period. The MedPro blood collection device is designed with fully automatic (passive) safety features to protect health workers from needlestick injuries when collecting blood.

Unilife has received $160,000 of $450,000 from MedPro allocated to start manufacturing the blood collection devices. Unilife finance director Jeff Carter said the deal would improve US opportunities for the company. "The funds generated from the private placement and the SPP (share purchase plan) will be used to support the above mentioned new business relationship with MedPro, the global rollout of our Unitract one millilitre safety syringes, and the expansion of our US activities."

MedPro is also in advanced talks with another European company for a second blood collection device that Unilife will build. Sales from this contract are expected to be more than that for the MedPro deal. Like Australia, it is mandatory in the US to use sharp safety devices to collect blood, and more than 1.5 billion blood collection devices a year are used in the US healthcare market.

Source: Asia Pulse
Source: Factiva