Unilife Whistleblower Lawsuit: Withdrawn

In 2013, Talbot Smith claimed he was fired in August 2012 from York, Pa.-based Unilife Corporation after he “made whistle-blowing complaints” and provided information relating to a violation of securities laws to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Smith had accepted the position as vice president for integrated supply chain at Unilife in September 2011.

Now, Smith has agreed to withdraw his whistleblower lawsuit and has issues and apology. “I would like to correct issues arising from claims I brought against Unilife,” he said. “I now understand that there were no violations of [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] regulations during my tenure at Unilife. In addition, in the summer of 2011, Unilife issued press releases which stated that they had begun shipments of validated Unifill product to customers. I now understand that the production process was in fact validated. Claims I brought were made in error and I apologize to Unilife, its shareholders, business partners and employees.”

“From the outset Unilife has asserted that Mr. Smith’s claims were entirely without merit and unfairly damaging to our Company and our shareholders,” said John Ryan, Unilife’s senior vice president and general counsel. “We are grateful to our attorneys, Carolyn Short and her colleagues at Reed Smith LLP, for their tireless work and this positive outcome.  The Reed Smith team expertly uncovered the facts, showing Mr. Smith’s claims to be meritless, and we are of course pleased with this result.  We are also pleased that in addition to apologizing to Unilife, Mr. Smith agreed to make a payment to the company to settle our claims against him, that he received no payment as part of the resolution and dismissal, and that his attorney received only a small portion of her fees from our insurer.  With this case now behind us, we look forward to focusing our resources fully on the growth of our business.”

Unilife makes injectable drug delivery systems.