The agreement will replenish cash Unilife has previously invested to finance the automated assembly line now manufacturing the Unifill ready-to-fill (prefilled) syringe at its manufacturing facility in York, PA.

Unilife CEO Alan Shortall said the financing agreement with Varilease provides them with additional capital resources that they can use to support continued sales and marketing of the Unifill syringe to current and additional pharmaceutical customers.

"We also expect to receive revenues relating to the development and sale of other pipeline products that are scheduled for use in the clinical drug trials," Shortall said.

The Unifill syringe is designed for integration into fill-finish systems used by pharmaceutical manufacturers to load a measure dose of an injectable drug or vaccine into equivalent standard prefilled syringes.

An automatic (passive) needle retraction mechanism is activated in the Unifill syringe upon full dose delivery, allowing operators to control the speed of needle retraction directly from the body into the barrel to virtually eliminate the risk of infection from potential transmission modes such as needlestick injuries or splatter.