The new agreement comes a year after the company’s partnership with Abbvie, and two years after its “unprecedented” deal with Sanofi.
Unilife CEO Alan Shortfall previously told in-PharmaTechnologist that these deals exemplify pharma’s desire to enhance its biologics offerings through delivery devices.
The most recent deal was announced in an SEC filing on December 31, 2015; however, the companies have until the end of January to finalize their strategic agreement.
According to the filing, Amgen paid Unilife a non-refundable $15m deposit as consideration for various non-exclusive and exclusive rights and licenses, pursuant to the agreement.
Under the agreement, Unilife grants Amgen “a perpetual, worldwide non-exclusive license under the patents, know-how and technology of the Company [Unilife],” for Unilife “to develop, manufacture and supply wearable injector devices existing as of the closing … for use with certain large volume drug products of the Counterparty [Amgen].”
Amgen’s license also includes a right to source and/or sublicense the manufacture of up to 20% of their total annual volume needs for such devices.