Document And Entity Information (USD $)	12 Months Ended
	Dec. 31, 2011	Feb. 29, 2012	Jun. 30, 2011
Document and Entity Information [Abstract]
Entity Registrant Name	UNIGENE LABORATORIES INC
Document Type	10-K
Current Fiscal Year End Date	--12-31
Entity Common Stock, Shares Outstanding		95,366,927
Entity Public Float			$ 87,525,000
Amendment Flag	true
Amendment Description	UNIGENE LABORATORIES, INC. EXPLANATORY NOTE – RESTATEMENT OF FINANCIAL INFORMATION Unigene Laboratories, Inc. (the “Company”) is filing this Amendment No. 2 on Form 10-K/A (the "Second Amendment") to its Annual Report on Form 10-K, as amended, for the period ended December 31, 2011, which was originally filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) on March 15, 2012 (the "Original Filing") and amended on Form 10-K/A filed on April 30, 2012 (the “First Amendment”), for the purpose of restating previously-filed financial statements, including the notes thereto, and amending portions of the related disclosures contained in the Original Filing (the "Restatement"). This Second Amendment includes (i) amended and restated balance sheets as of December 31, 2011 and 2010, (ii) amended and restated statements of operations, shareholders’ deficit and cash flows for the years ended December 31, 2011 and 2010 and (ii) amended and restated quarterly financial information for the quarters ended March 31, 2011 and 2010, June 30, 2011 and 2010, September 30, 2011 and 2010, and December 31, 2011 and 2010. We will not file amended periodic reports for any of the affected quarterly periods. All, or a portion of, the following items of the Original Filing have been amended and restated in this Second Amendment to reflect the Restatement: Part I, Item 1A. Risk Factors; Part II, Item 6. Selected Financial Data; Part II, Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations; Part II, Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data; Part II, Item 9A. Controls and Procedures; and Part IV, Item 15. Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules. In addition, various cross-references located through-out this Second Amendment reflect the Restatement, as well as the filing of the First Amendment. Financial information related to the periods ended December 31, 2011 and 2010, including any portions of such annual periods previously filed by us and all related earnings press releases and similar communications issued by us during and with respect to these periods, should not be relied upon. In the event there are discrepancies between this Second Amendment and previous reports, press releases and similar communications, the information in this Second Amendment shall govern. For the convenience of the reader, this Second Amendment sets forth the Original Filing in its entirety. Other than to reflect the effects of the Restatement, none of the other disclosures in the Original Filing have been amended or updated. Among other things, forward looking statements made in the Original Filing have not been revised to reflect events that occurred or facts that became known to the Company after the filing of the Original Filing, and such forward-looking statements should be read in their historical context. Accordingly, the Second Amendment should be read in conjunction with the Company’s filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission subsequent to the original filing date, including all amendments to those filings. The information required by Part III (Items 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14) of Form 10-K is incorporated by reference to the First Amendment, as filed with the SEC on April 30, 2012. The purpose of the First Amendment was to include Part III information that was previously intended to be incorporated by reference from a definitive proxy statement relating to a subsequently postponed annual meeting of stockholders. The information contained in the First Amendment is not impacted by the Restatement. Background of the Restatement In November 2012, we identified an accounting error related to the Company’s accounting for an embedded derivative liability during the periods ended June 30, 2012 and March 31, 2012 and the years ended December 31, 2011 and 2010 associated with our senior secured convertible notes.. Specifically, management determined that the Company’s convertible notes contain a conversion reset provision that lowers the stated conversion price under certain circumstances, which requires the conversion feature to be accounted for as an embedded derivative that must be marked to fair value each reporting period. As a result, the Company should not have reversed the carrying value of the liability for the embedded derivative in the quarter ended June 30, 2010 and should have continued to mark such liability to fair value in its financial statements for the quarterly periods from June 30, 2010 through June 30, 2012. Additionally, we determined that the methodology utilized to determine the fair value of the embedded derivative liability for the quarter ended March 31, 2010 was not appropriate as it did not properly consider a reset feature contained within the related convertible notes and consequently, the prior conclusion that the issuance of the senior secured convertible notes in March 2010 represented a troubled debt restructuring was incorrect. As a result of the re-assessment of the March 2010 transaction, we have concluded that the addition of the conversion feature to the notes indicates the new notes are substantially different from the previously issued notes and as a result, the transaction should have been accounted for as a debt extinguishment. 4 On November 21, 2012, our management, in consultation with our Board of Directors, concluded that the Company's previously issued financial statements: (i) for the years ended December 31, 2011 and 2010 included in our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, as amended, for the years then ended (collectively, the "Annual Reports"); and (ii) for the interim periods ended June 30, 2012, March 31, 2012, September 30, 2011, June 30, 2011, March 31, 2011, September 30, 2010, June 30, 2010 and March 31, 2010 (collectively, the "Quarterly Financial Statements") included in our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for each of the aforementioned quarterly periods (collectively, the "Quarterly Reports") should no longer be relied upon. Additionally, it was determined that the Company should, as soon as practicable, file with the SEC (i) an amendment to the Original Filing (as previously amended), inclusive of restated financial data pertaining to each applicable quarterly period in 2011and 2010 and (ii) amendments to the Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the periods ended June 30, 2012 and March 31, 2012 in order to restate such financial statements. Concurrently with the filing of this Second Amendment, we are filing our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q or 10-Q/A, as applicable, for each of the quarterly periods ended September 30, 2012, June 30, 2012 and March 31, 2012, which reports include unaudited amended and restated condensed financial statements and related financial information for the fiscal 2011 comparative periods presented in those reports, reflecting the effects of the Restatement. We have not amended, and do not intend to amend, any of our other previously filed SEC reports for the periods that ended prior to December 31, 2011 to reflect the Restatement, as the amended and restated information contained in this Second Amendment covers the time periods applicable to such reports. However, we are also amending the financial statements and related portions of the disclosures contained in our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the periods ended March 31 and June 30, 2012 to reflect the Restatement.
Entity Central Index Key	0000352747
Entity Current Reporting Status	Yes
Entity Voluntary Filers	No
Entity Filer Category	Accelerated Filer
Entity Well-known Seasoned Issuer	No
Document Period End Date	Dec. 31, 2011
Document Fiscal Year Focus	2011
Document Fiscal Period Focus	FY