factory visit - report

Here goes folks.
Everyone, these are my thoughts and interpretations on what was discussed and what I saw. As I said I went there as a representative of HC posters. Pardigmshift will give his version – respect what he says as it is his thoughts. They may be different to mine. Happy reading.

The Factory

I have worked in several factories and on several production lines. We saw the delivery area where receival comes into the factory. Storage racks were fairly full of materials for manufacturing products. A process of receiving materials and quarantining it – then put through cleaning processes before acceptance into the storage area. We went into the area where parts etc were made for equipment, several lathes , work stations, and other equipment for building equipment. They make a lot of their own equipment/devices/parts.

A bit on the process of development of ideas. For example a plastic/rubber washer with a lip that fits around a piece of metal. A nylon die cast mold is first used, once more advanced a metal die cast is used. Then when all things are finalised it can if required progress to the automation stage. We are out there in innovation land and a lot of this is trial, error and see what works. Improve it as much as they can.

We went into a clean area that surrounds the main clean rooms that have the production lines in them. To go into these clean rooms requires far stricter code of dress and cleanliness. I doubt if any visitors are allowed in there. So I’m sorry to say you didn’t get an up close look at the equipment in action. You observe them from windows 3-10 m away. We saw the Unitract and Unifill production lines running. We only looked in for a few minutes at each. Two other areas had people building the plunger for the Unifill I think and building the Auto-injector.

It is a big thing to organise a tour and sometimes not too keen on them. The tour that paradigm and I did had an institutional investor there for the tour and lunch room meeting. My recommendation is try and see the clean rooms, have a demo of the products and have a one on one/ two chat with Alan and Ramin. These tour/meetings take people away from their jobs. So if a lot of tours then they are wasting time to some extent.

Pardigm and I had an hour with Alan and Ramin before the investor fellow arrived. We then we did the factory tour and had lunch meeting with about 14 of the top people.

Lunch

Each of the people introduced themselves and gave a history of where they worked previously etc. The person running each product division, then gave us a demo of the products or talked about the products. The thing that struck me, was how young some of these people are (20’s-early 30’s). There are 6 divisions I think and each has a head person and they are just about fully responsible for the running of it. Alan gives them fairly loose reins to get into it and do things. No discrimination here, there were some young women powering on here – great to see. Around about here paradigm had to leave to get back to Baltimore to catch his plane which was a pity. He and I were suppose to have dinner with Alan and Ramin the night before but my plane was 3.25 hrs late and dinner was cancelled. The investor fellow had questions to ask Alan and Ramin and Alan suggested him and I have dinner together. That night

Dinner

This was my time to ask the questions I was supplied with from HC posters. You have read those replies.
If you have questions NOW, I’m sorry it is a bit late now, YOU should have given them to me BEFORE I went.
Then my questions.

The Unifill

How is the Unifill line performing? Alan reassured me the line was running good, up to the 85% capacity rate. It has its little stoppages – couple of seconds to a few minutes (Ramin informed us of that).
Any big pharama, big deals before Xmas – answer yes
Ordering new 180M prod line – answer before Xmas
When validated – answer June – Sept
Time to manufacture the 180M line – 6 mths.
Any possibility of two lines – could be – I put a low probability on this though.

The Select

When will we be producing it – when two 180M Unifill lines in and operational, 60M line will be used to produce the Select. Sales 2014.

Auto-injector

They have pilot line up and running, will more capacity and automation as demand increases.
By end of 2014 – 1 in 5 Unifill in Auto-injectors

Pumps

Currently producing low volumes on pilot line.
May take until 2016 before seeing devices with drugs on the market, but they expect that the development agreements for the pumps to customize them for the specific drugs requirements, will bring in substantial funds in the meantime.
Volume – could be around 50M 2016

EZ-Mix

To customize to pharmas wants – could take 3-6 mths
Trials 12-18 mths
Volume in 2015/16 could be 20M

Organ devices

High volume Sales I feel 3-4 yrs away but as with the pumps they expect that the project will generate substantial funding in the meantime.
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Number of employees – approximately 150 – sensitive info – so I don’t put too much importance on that number.

Capital raising – they have multiple opportunities for accessing capital, pharma could pay for prod line and UNS lease back. Pharma may provide cash up front in agreement. Could be loan. Could be capital raising.

Contracts.

How many Unifill agreements before Xmas – answer 2
How many Development agreements before Xmas – answer 2

Future

I then put to Alan that in the near future (maybe 6 mths) when we have a few agreements signed up, could he inform the market of a timeframe of how long it might take for the products to go through the cycle to where we are making sales. These would have to be fairly open timeframes. It would have to be made clear to share holders that these are rough time frames. I do believe that to gain people’s confidence we need this as fast as possible. With some solid agreements in place and our future looking good, I can’t see why this info can’t be released.

Some other info

Ramin said in big pharma the processes of things happening, take months /years. What has happened with the pumps in 14 mths at UNS probably would have taken 6-10 years in big device companies. We have delivered way beyond SA’s expectations. Asked reception lady how long she had been with the company and if she like it here. Oct last year and she loves it. Maintenance fellow who took me back to Hotel, asked him about UNS. He was a worker at Harley Davison motorbikes which are produced around here somewhere. Retired, wife driving him batty applied for job at UNS. He does maintenance and loves it there – says he wouldn’t work there if he didn’t like it.

The senior manager of compliance and quality informed us (at the lunch meeting) that she held a fair size holding and had added to it in the last 4 weeks. She has just under half what I have. A high level person and his wife (who had a great business) upped house and moved to be able to work at UNS. People don’t do that if they think the business isn’t solid. Alan is fully committed financially to Unilife’s success.

I had better draw this to an end. Redpill will think I have been brainwashed if I keep going on. Folks it’s up to you, to make out what I have said. I don’t tell people to buy or sell, that is your decision. Everyone has their own position to consider. I had said the other week that from now to the end of the year is crunch time. If Alan and the team can get these few deals done and one of them is, the one we all want, then I think we are on our way.

How is that litmus paper going Redpill?