MannKind Appoints Tony Hooper to Its Board of Directors

[mango]

Nov 22, 2019 3:11:10 GMT -5 mytakeonit said:

Okay ... as a future director ... I declare now that I will take the common stock option. Cash doesn't mean that much to me ... and the extra shares for my daughter sounds good.

HA HA HA ... oops!

But, that's mytakeonit

Careful giving your daughter this Koolaid...

Unless of course she likes Koolaid!

[mytakeonit]

Did I mention that I added a chunk of MNKD shares to "our" combined account this morning?

MNKD is smart to give out shares instead of cash ... directors would be also smart to take these common stock options. Today $1 cash equals over $8 by end of year when we hit $10 pps.

But, that's mytakeonit

[lennymnkd]

The only problem with that is , I thought all the other highly qualified people that joined the company were thinking the same thing,but it hasn't happened for them / I keep getting fooled .

[agedhippie]

Nov 22, 2019 13:07:24 GMT -5 mytakeonit said:

Did I mention that I added a chunk of MNKD shares to "our" combined account this morning?

MNKD is smart to give out shares instead of cash ... directors would be also smart to take these common stock options. Today $1 cash equals over $8 by end of year when we hit $10 pps.

But, that's mytakeonit

Those are RSUs, not options, that they are getting paid. It's all free money (well, the shareholders money, but free to them) so why wouldn't they want it?

If the board member elects to be paid is stock the company will match the stock so they get $100k rather than $50k - $50k can be sold immediately, and $50k when they leave the board.

[mytakeonit]

Options ... should read option or choice. I say that the stock will be worth more in the future then cash now. That is if the board directs MNKD to where we all want it to be ... +$100 in 2 years, or +$200 in 5 years.

But, that's mytakeonit

[mnholdem]

“Michael E. Castagna, Pharm.D. has been our Chief Executive Officer and as one of our directors since May 2017. Dr. Castagna was our Chief Commercial Officer from March 2016 until May 2017. From November 2012 until he joined us, Dr. Castagna was at Amgen, Inc., where he initially served as Vice President, Global Lifecycle Management and was most recently Vice President, Global Commercial Lead for Amgen’s Biosimilar Business Unit.”

Based upon His bio, it would appear that Director Hooper was Michael Castagna’s superior, if not his immediate boss:

”Mr. Hooper served as executive vice president of Global Commercial Operations for Amgen Inc. from Oct 2011 until August 2018. During his tenure, he led the transformation of Amgen's commercial organization, placing a relentless focus on putting patients at the center of all the company’s activities. Under his leadership, Amgen grew revenue by 50 percent, launched six new first-in-class medicines for serious diseases, more than doubled the global footprint by expanding into 50 new countries, and established a new biosimilars business.”

I would think that the newly appointed Director is, perhaps, more qualified to assess the CEO’s strengths and weaknesses than any other Board member. 

My point? I recommend that shareholders not be toonquick to assume that Mr. Hooper will be supportive of MannKind’s former CCO and current CEO’s performance. He will quickly ascertain facts from fiction. 

[lifebreath]

Nov 23, 2019 13:09:35 GMT -5 mnholdem said:

“Michael E. Castagna, Pharm.D. has been our Chief Executive Officer and as one of our directors since May 2017. Dr. Castagna was our Chief Commercial Officer from March 2016 until May 2017. From November 2012 until he joined us, Dr. Castagna was at Amgen, Inc., where he initially served as Vice President, Global Lifecycle Management and was most recently Vice President, Global Commercial Lead for Amgen’s Biosimilar Business Unit.”

Based upon His bio, it would appear that Director Hooper was Michael Castagna’s superior, if not his immediate boss:

”Mr. Hooper served as executive vice president of Global Commercial Operations for Amgen Inc. from Oct 2011 until August 2018. During his tenure, he led the transformation of Amgen's commercial organization, placing a relentless focus on putting patients at the center of all the company’s activities. Under his leadership, Amgen grew revenue by 50 percent, launched six new first-in-class medicines for serious diseases, more than doubled the global footprint by expanding into 50 new countries, and established a new biosimilars business.”

I would think that the newly appointed Director is, perhaps, more qualified to assess the CEO’s strengths and weaknesses than any other Board member. 

My point? I recommend that shareholders not be toonquick to assume that Mr. Hooper will be supportive of MannKind’s former CCO and current CEO’s performance. He will quickly ascertain facts from fiction. 

You have given me hope mnholdem maybe he is coming in as the hatchet man.

[mnholdem]

That wasn’t my intent, but I have do have firm convictions about what the roles of the Board of Directors should entail and what their priorities should be, including oversight of management’s performance related to the health of the company, the public image of the company and transparency by the Board to company shareholders.

[goyocafe]

I’m very curious how long and what MC’s list of excuses looks like.

[mnholdem]

To their credit, the Compensation Committee of the Board of Directors has revised executive compensation to be performance-based. The Board has communicated to shareholders that the performance standards are set sufficiently high as to require considerable effort by executives to achieve compensation for reaching those performance standards.

I think that it’s possible that Mr. Cooper will be valuable in assessing whether performance standards are too low, as well as providing guidance related to the 3-5 year business plan.

I hope Hooper is both aggressive and assertive largely because of the way I have implemented my business philosophy over 35 years in middle and executive management. I believe in pushing for paradigm changes. For example, if you set +10% as a goal, it’s quite likely that your managers will continue doing things the same way, only harder. If you set +200% as a near-term goal, you force management to think differently and, hopefully, to adopt a new paradigm with better results.

Technosphere Insulin is a breakthrough therapy for treatment of diabetes and it requires a completely different paradigm than conventional insulin treatments.

Insulin may be out of Mr. Hooper’s area of expertise but it’s my hope that he immediately recognizes the potential of Afrezza and brings his considerable expertise to help the company achieve the potential of its flagship product.

[rockstarrick]

I hope all this stuff happening means I won’t have to go streaking at the Whitehouse. 10 years ago I would’ve been cool with it, but I’d be fine if none of us had to go through that type of trauma.

[mnholdem]

Contrary to some posted suggestions, MannKind Corporation has NOT expanded the Board of Directors from 7 to 8 members. 


ELECTION OF DIRECTORS



MannKind’s Board of Directors currently consists of eight directors. There are seven nominees for director this year, all of whom were nominated by our Board of Directors, consisting of our incumbent directors other than Mr. David MacCallum, who we did not nominate for reelection at the annual meeting as a result of his preference to retire from the Board at the end of his current term. Each director to be elected will hold office until the next annual meeting of stockholders and until his or her successor is elected, or until the director’s earlier death, resignation or removal. All nominees listed below are currently our directors and were previously elected by our stockholders at the 2018 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, except for Ms. Christine Mundkur who was appointed to the Board in November 2018. It is our policy that directors are invited and expected to attend annual meetings. All of the then-standing directors, except Messrs. MacCallum and Nordhoff, attended the 2018 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.


Source: 2019 Schedule 14A Proxy Statement
www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/899460/000114036119005883/bp18389x2_def14a.htm#tPROP1

[mnholdem]

The facts are that Director Hooper is simply replacing retired Director MacCallum's seat and it's reasonable to assume that the addition of the new Director is not some attempt to prevent HfM from securing a majority of the Board votes via the nomination process.

As I said the other day, I prefer facts over fiction.

[falconquest]

Dec 6, 2019 8:28:59 GMT -5 mnholdem said:

The facts are that Director Hooper is simply replacing retired Director MacCallum's seat and it's reasonable to assume that the addition of the new Director is not some attempt to prevent HfM from securing a majority of the Board votes via the nomination process.

As I said the other day, I prefer facts over fiction.

A very wise position MN, which is why I assume most shareholders support you for the board. I do have a question for you. I assume if elected you would have to discontinue all communication on this board? Obviously you wouldn't be able to communicate any non public information. We shall miss your even handed wisdom.

[golfeveryday]

Dec 6, 2019 8:28:59 GMT -5 mnholdem said:

The facts are that Director Hooper is simply replacing retired Director MacCallum's seat and it's reasonable to assume that the addition of the new Director is not some attempt to prevent HfM from securing a majority of the Board votes via the nomination process.

As I said the other day, I prefer facts over fiction.

if this is true, which I am quite sure it is, then Bill McCulloughs recent letter to shareholders was highly unnecessary and too reactionary.