Document And Entity Information	3 Months Ended
	Mar. 31, 2012	Apr. 26, 2012
Document and Entity Information [Abstract]
Entity Registrant Name	UNIGENE LABORATORIES INC
Document Type	10-Q
Current Fiscal Year End Date	--12-31
Entity Common Stock, Shares Outstanding		95,374,927
Amendment Flag	true
Amendment Description	EXPLANATORY NOTE – RESTATEMENT OF FINANCIAL INFORMATION Unigene Laboratories, Inc. (the “Company”) is filing this Amendment No. 1 on Form 10-Q/A (the "Amendment") to its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended March 31, 2012, which was originally filed May 10,2012 (the "Original Filing") to amend and restate previously-filed condensed financial statements and related disclosures for such period (the "Restatement"). All or a portion of the following items of the Original Filing have been amended and restated in this Amendment to reflect the Restatement: Part I, Item 1. Financial Statements; Part I, Item 2. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations; and Part I, Item 4. Controls and Procedures; and Part II, Item 1A. Risk Factors; In addition, various cross-references located throughout this Amendment and Part II, Item 6 have been updated throughout this Amendment to reflect the Restatement. Financial information related to the period ended March 31, 2012 and 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 Amendment and previous reports, press releases and similar communications, the information in this Amendment shall govern. This Amendment amends and restates the Original Filing in its entirety to reflect the effects of the Restatement. Generally, no attempt has been made in this Amendment to modify or update other disclosures presented in the Original Filing except as required to reflect the effects of the Restatement. This Form 10-Q/A does not reflect events occurring after the filing of the Original Filing or modify or update those disclosures. Accordingly, the Amendment should be read in conjunction with the Company’s filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) subsequent to the original filing date, including any amendments to those filings. 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 ending June 30, 2012, March 31, 2012 and 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 a liability for an 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 based on the revised valuation methodology, we have concluded that the transaction should have been accounted for as a debt extinguishment. On November 21, 2012, our management, in consultation with our Board of Directors, concluded that the Company's previously issued consolidated 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 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 we should, as soon as practicable, file with the SEC: (i) an amendment to the Annual Reports, inclusive of restated financial data pertaining to each applicable quarterly period in 2011 and 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 for each of the quarterly periods ended September 30, 2012 and June 30, 2012, which reports will include unaudited restated condensed consolidated financial statements and related financial information for the fiscal 2011 comparative periods presented in those reports, reflecting the effects of the Restatement. We are also concurrently filing Amendment No. 2 on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2011 (the “Second Amendment”). 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 period ended 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	Mar. 31, 2012
Document Fiscal Year Focus	2012
Document Fiscal Period Focus	Q1