york daily

Unilife looks to hire 50 people by the end of the year
By LAUREN BOYER
Daily Record/Sunday News
Updated: 02/15/2011 07:13:11 PM EST

York, PA - There's always syringes in Stephen Allan's pockets. He carries them through airport. To dinner. Everywhere.

The vice president for marketing and communications at Unilife Medical Solutions in Conewago Township, Allan never knows who he's going to meet.

"You can only imagine his wife doing laundry," said Amanda Gemmill, community relations coordinator for the company, which makes safety syringes that retract to protect healthcare workers from needle-stick injuries.

"She hates me," laughed Allan, walking through the long, white hallways of Unilife's recently-completed 165,000-square-foot building.

The company, which employs 150 workers, moved into the $31 million building Dec. 20.

Unilife's staff has doubled in size every year for the past three years.

And the company is still "hiring like there's no tomorrow," Allan said.

Unilife plans to soon fill 12 positions, including manufacturing jobs, he said. By the end of the year, the company expects to hire an additional 50 workers.

The jobs are the result of a 2008 lunch shared between former Gov. Ed Rendell and Unilife CEO Alan Shortall. That day, Rendell pledged his support to Shortall in an agreement that's brought the company $5.4 million in grants and loans from the state.

Unilife traces its local manufacturing roots back to 2006 when it bought Integrated BioSciences in Lewisberry. Three years later, the company moved its corporate headquarters from Australia to the Fairview Industrial Park.

The company reversed a national manufacturing trend by moving its original production lines from China to the United States, Allan said.

Unilife isn't looking to expand right now, Allan said, adding that a second location in Europe wouldn't be out of the question down the road.

This quarter, the company will begin manufacturing at their Conewago Township location, which houses a gym, office space, a 20,000-square-foot warehouse and 11 "clean rooms."

The company will use the clean rooms to package syringes in an environment free of dust and other particulate matter, Allan said.

Another room houses boilers that purify water for the manufacturing process.

In its present state, the location has the capacity to produce 400 million syringes per year.

The company's "Unifill" syringe is sold to pharmaceutical companies who fill the devices with medicine and sell them pre-filled to doctors.

The "Unifill" clicks and retracts like a ballpoint pen, but it's far from it, Allan said.

"You wouldn't believe how much patent protection there is on this," he said, tucking the syringe back in his suit pocket.

[email protected]; 771-2062

About Unilife Medical SolutionsLast year, Unilife Medical Solutions began trading on NASDAQ under "UNIS."

For the fourth quarter 2010, the company earned $1.8 million compared to $3.2 million for fourth quarter 2009.

For the six month period, ending Dec. 31, revenues decreased from $5.3 million, compared to $6.4 million for the same period in 2009.

An increased workforce and fees contributed to the losses, the company said Monday in a news release.

WHAT'S INSIDE

On Dec. 20, Unilife Medical Solutions, a manufacturer of safety syringes that retract to protect healthcare workers from needle-stick injuries, moved into a 165,000-square-foot building in Conewago Township.

Here's what inside the building: --- Eleven clean rooms with systems to control temperature, humidity, microbial activity and particulate matter.

--- An advanced "water-for-injection system to purify water for use in the manufacturing process.

--- A microbiology lab.

--- A product development center.

--- Quality physical and analytical inspection labs.

--- A 20,000-square-foot temperature controlled warehouse.

--- A 54,000-square-foot office wing.