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Post by stevil on Jan 8, 2016 17:23:36 GMT -5
That's why it's wise to look at every data point you have at your disposal. Do the statistics support or deny your hypothesis? If not, then you get to figure out if your testing method produced errant results or if your hypothesis was wrong. We have more data today than we did at FDA approval. I hope it's not being forsaken. In any case, pointing to the few companies that overcame the odds as justification to invest more sounds very dangerous and I hope people are being honest with themselves before taking the leap and adding shares.
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Post by greg on Jan 8, 2016 17:49:45 GMT -5
Mannkind hasn't declared BK though. Odds aren't good the company survives but let's not make a claim that hasn't happened yet. I'm not making a claim about what has happened yet. The point of this thread was to use history to find similar companies whose stories ended up being successful. This board often times lacks balance. Very few drugs get developed with the intention of being a middle-of-the-road product. With the cost of R&D and marketing, only the best of the best ideas get pulled from to get brought to market. Every drug that gets developed was probably thought to be a blockbuster in its own right. For the record- I'm still on the Afrezza train. I still think it's an amazing product and I hope I'm wrong. But with social media and the internet, nothing extraordinary stays a secret anymore. At some point you just have to accept that maybe there isn't enough interest in Afrezza to thrive. The odds were already stacked against us when we were with SNY, and despite the spin the eternal optimists keep trying to use to say we're better off now, it's never a good thing when you get dropped by a company that specializes in the very business your product was tailored for. I'm not buying that SNY was afraid it'd cut into the market share of their other medications. The only way for it to do that would be for Afrezza to reach blockbuster status. Then, guess what? They have a new blockbuster on their hands. The only logical reason SNY decided to drop Afrezza was because they didn't think it would be a profitable addition to their portfolio. If they really saw such disruptive potential behind it, they wouldn't let it fall into the hands of their competitors... because, guess what? There goes all that market share again and this time they're not recouping any of it. Instead, they're losing all of it. I'm not saying that SNY did all they could to make sure Afrezza was a success, but I'm not saying they didn't, either. Gallop polls don't form their statistics after polling every single person in the US. They take a small sample size and extrapolate their data to make their generalizations. And they've done a pretty decent job if you do a study on them. Statistics are freakishly accurate when used well. Trend lines are accurate an overwhelming majority of the time. So why am I saying all of this? Because maybe instead of rolling out and spending $100 million to market this new drug, they took their time and were a little more strategic about it. I'm sure SNY knows who the right Docs were to contact in regards to being a little looser in their prescribing habits. They probably targeted them first. Then, it's not difficult to make inferences based off of feedback from them. The truth is, there are so many different variables that go into why Afrezza will succeed or fail. Insurance price, doctors willingness to prescribe, patient willingness to change a potentially lifelong brand that they're comfortable with and understand, etc. We need to remember that Afrezza didn't reinvent the wheel. There hasn't really been a dire need for a new insulin medication. The stuff we have now, while inferior, still produces decent results. If you own something that does what it's supposed to and gives you the results you expect, do you listen to people that try to sell you on "the next best thing?" I usually blow those people off. I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm saying it's even more improbable than before that Afrezza becomes what we all hope for it to become. By all means, do your research. Just make sure that you're being fair to yourself by looking for the rule and not the exception. An analogy I would draw for the feeling I get after reading some posters on this board is that they would sell their house to buy every powerball ticket they could afford and then be devastated when they didn't win. In reality, they didn't realize that what they were dumping their money into wasn't really that wise of an investment in the first place. It still makes me sad the people that put more money into this stock with the expectation that it will return appreciably. Any investment should be met with extreme caution and speculative at best. What sign, thus far, has Afrezza shown that it can be successful? So many holes with your comment. 1. the point of the thread was to explore the possibilities for companies in MNKD's position. It was not the following: "This is all well and good, but why don't people spend their efforts researching companies like MNKD that went bankrupt to draw parallels?" 2. If the following statements "But with social media and the internet, nothing extraordinary stays a secret anymore. At some point you just have to accept that maybe there isn't enough interest in Afrezza to thrive." have any merit, then American businesses are wasting billions, if not trillions, of dollars on advertising. Perhaps you can explain why Toujeo ads seem ubiquitous on television these days if advertising is unnecessary. I would also remind you that Lantus sales were lackluster in the first year. Why wasn't it jettisoned? 3. You're right it's not a good thing when a company drops a product, whether it specialises in that sort of product or not, but that doesn't always mean that it's a bad product and doesn't have any potential. Folks on this board, at least the well-intentioned one, are offering and assessing constructive posts in an attempt to determine whether Afrezza does indeed have a future. You, my friend, unfortunately don't come here to be constructive and I believe your "I told you so" comment from one of your previous posts underscores that point. I could go on but why bother! All the carp, so tiring.
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Post by mindovermatter on Jan 8, 2016 18:19:45 GMT -5
That's why it's wise to look at every data point you have at your disposal. Do the statistics support or deny your hypothesis? If not, then you get to figure out if your testing method produced errant results or if your hypothesis was wrong. We have more data today than we did at FDA approval. I hope it's not being forsaken. In any case, pointing to the few companies that overcame the odds as justification to invest more sounds very dangerous and I hope people are being honest with themselves before taking the leap and adding shares. The one big thing going for Mannkind is that the drug has had about a year on the market and has shown it works and those who use it, rave about it. Not many drug companies have that on their side when they lose a marketing partner. The key now, as we know, is whether or not Mannkind can find a competent marketing partner. Sanofi showed it was not up to the task.
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Post by stevil on Jan 8, 2016 19:05:28 GMT -5
not sure where you found the holes... 1. Is bankruptcy not a possibility for MNKD? I will state that bankruptcy is the most likely destination for us... right now... That can obviously change by tomorrow, but the current state of where we are, we need a partner to make it past this year. We currently do not have one. That would make bankruptcy our most likely destination. In any case, I just encouraged the board to do themselves justice and consider EVERY possibility instead of researching only the companies who overcame the odds. Again, it's analogous to entering a small lottery and EXPECTING to win it. Hoping to win, maybe. But people have to be honest with themselves and understand that this currently is a losing bet. But the reward is also potentially great. Afrezza should not be EXPECTED to turn a profit at this time. What has it done, thus far, to show that it will? The only chance we have right now is to get bought out by a HUGE pharma. I hesitate to post the link below- inevitably, the focus of the post will be that Lipitor became a blockbuster in a market dominated by other statins (of which Lipitor is) and lend more credence to the idea that Afrezza will yet become a blockbuster. There are so many parallels to us that I'll share it anyway. But pay attention to what it took. It took the first year FDA allowed DTC advertising. That's a huge advantage. It took $800 million and over 400 studies. We don't have the money or the time. It took a ton of research about a previously relatively unknown disease. Diabetes has been one of the most studied diseases, if not the most studied disease, in the history of mankind and is very well-known and understood. There are more, but I'll let you read for yourself. IF Afrezza survives AND gets picked up by a huge pharma AND they have deep pockets AND are committed to its success AND are patient until they reach their goal, Afrezza will likely become the blockbuster we expect. The problem with this belief is that every one of those AND's has to go the right way. And then, that's still only a part of the equation. It's not a guarantee. The only thing we do know for certain is that the world leader as of 2014 decided it wasn't worth their investment- and this done by a man who probably is more intimately knowledgeable of the hardships that Afrezza would face than any of us here. He may just be the wrong man to market an inhaled insulin, but he has more experience than anyone else in knowing how much it would cost and what it would take to overcome the headwinds. That shouldn't be discounted. 2. You came to a faulty conclusion to poke a hole in my argument. I never stated that advertising was a waste of money. My comment was that extraordinary things go viral through social media and the internet all the time. It's obviously a difficult argument to defend because it's impossible to know how many extraordinary things DON'T go viral because... well... they're still a secret for the most part, but I stand by my argument that if something is extraordinary in today's day and age, it will eventually be found out. Not only that, but there are already tens of thousands (probably more likely in the hundreds of thousands) of diabetics who have theoretically been exposed to Afrezza. Afrezza has gotten a lot of free pub through news broadcasts, online diabetic bloggers, yet many still don't know about it. Even more damning than the lack of chatter about it is the number of script counts. You would expect a higher number of scripts to be filled with that kind of exposure if there was high interest in the medication. If you read Sam Finta's followers or the many internet bloggers' followers, you'll see many (not all so don't put words in my mouth ) of them are "ho hum" about it, their doctors are disinterested, or it's not worth it to them because it's too expensive. I'll put this in a separate column because it's a different argument. Lantus is a 15 year-old drug and was released when the diabetic landscape looked completely different. At the time, it was the ONLY true once-a-day long-acting insulin. I'm not sure why you included it in your #2 because the internet had no where near the users it had today so I'm not sure what point you're making in regards to mine, but I'll assume you're asking why it took 4 years of being on the market to become a blockbuster and why we shouldn't then give time to Afrezza to have that same success. My response is that was still at the beginning stages of drug marketing (DTC started in 1997, I believe- from the linked article below), so the marketing playing field was far more dynamic than it is today. By now, big pharma has a pretty good feel for what works and what doesn't and why. As with all things, no one is perfect, but they clearly feel confident in their formula that they let us go. Again it was a really big deal that Lantus was the only long-acting basal. It had no competition and was essentially handed its superior label. While Afrezza doesn't truly have competition either in the purest sense of the word, until more data comes out proving how much better Afrezza is, it's kind of in the eye of the beholder. Spiro and blindhog (or any other Afrezza users)- this isn't to discount the success you've had on Afrezza. There are just so many other options that do an adequately similar job to Afrezza that the competition appears much closer to Afrezza than it did to Lantus- again, pending further studies. SNY probably realized how many studies it would take just to get a label change and figured it wasn't worth their time or money. Did they want to spend nearly a billion dollars just to target an audience that might not want to buy their product? It was a risk they weren't willing to take. And it was so great a risk that they didn't even care to keep it from their competition. 3.Again, you didn't reach my intended conclusion. I never said that Afrezza was a bad product or didn't have potential. I simply said that the world leader in diabetes didn't see it fit to add to their portfolio. So many here dismiss that, but that's actually a really, really important part of the argument. And it absolutely has to do with whether Afrezza has a future or not. If the best of the best doesn't want your product, what does that say about your product? Ok, won't let you infer... I'll answer so you don't misunderstand me again... It means that the cost of bringing the product to market might be greater than the return on that investment. There is only one thing you can count on regarding big business. They love money. There is no way that they let Afrezza slip away if they truly believed that it would be worth their investment. Again, even more importantly, there's no way they let it slip into the hands of their competitors unless they are 100% confident that it is not worth their investment. So, if the world leader in insulin finds a product unfit for market, who is going to want to pay anything close to a premium for it? Like it or not, justified or not, we are stained by this divorce. We now have a reputation that we will not be able to shake off. The only chance of survival that we have is that someone takes a chance on us. Even then, the buy out will not be significant as there is still so much investment needed to reach its potential. And then, after all that, you have to hope that people will want it when you're all done. In the grand scheme of things, the majority of the weight has been lifted. However, research and tea leaves suggest that there may be close to $1 billion needed to help Afrezza reach its potential. No matter how deep your pockets are, that's a huge risk. And yes, I've written far too much for today and I need to be productive. It's unfortunate that you didn't understand my arguments. I doubt anyone else will pick up where I left off, but maybe during the next break I'll enter back in... In regards to your final point about being constructive- I must have misunderstood your intention for this thread. The way I see it, MNKD and Afrezza's future are intertwined- at least as far as investors would care. If MNKD doesn't survive, Afrezza's survival becomes only a happy ending to the diabetics story. It is a catastrophe for us as investors if its potential is not realized while we still own it. I took the stance of arguing whether this was currently a worthwhile investment.
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Post by stevil on Jan 8, 2016 19:06:19 GMT -5
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Post by kbrion77 on Jan 8, 2016 19:10:26 GMT -5
Mannkind hasn't declared BK though. Odds aren't good the company survives but let's not make a claim that hasn't happened yet. I'm not making a claim about what has happened yet. The point of this thread was to use history to find similar companies whose stories ended up being successful. This board often times lacks balance. Very few drugs get developed with the intention of being a middle-of-the-road product. With the cost of R&D and marketing, only the best of the best ideas get pulled from to get brought to market. Every drug that gets developed was probably thought to be a blockbuster in its own right. For the record- I'm still on the Afrezza train. I still think it's an amazing product and I hope I'm wrong. But with social media and the internet, nothing extraordinary stays a secret anymore. At some point you just have to accept that maybe there isn't enough interest in Afrezza to thrive. The odds were already stacked against us when we were with SNY, and despite the spin the eternal optimists keep trying to use to say we're better off now, it's never a good thing when you get dropped by a company that specializes in the very business your product was tailored for. I'm not buying that SNY was afraid it'd cut into the market share of their other medications. The only way for it to do that would be for Afrezza to reach blockbuster status. Then, guess what? They have a new blockbuster on their hands. The only logical reason SNY decided to drop Afrezza was because they didn't think it would be a profitable addition to their portfolio. If they really saw such disruptive potential behind it, they wouldn't let it fall into the hands of their competitors... because, guess what? There goes all that market share again and this time they're not recouping any of it. Instead, they're losing all of it. I'm not saying that SNY did all they could to make sure Afrezza was a success, but I'm not saying they didn't, either. Gallop polls don't form their statistics after polling every single person in the US. They take a small sample size and extrapolate their data to make their generalizations. And they've done a pretty decent job if you do a study on them. Statistics are freakishly accurate when used well. Trend lines are accurate an overwhelming majority of the time. So why am I saying all of this? Because maybe instead of rolling out and spending $100 million to market this new drug, they took their time and were a little more strategic about it. I'm sure SNY knows who the right Docs were to contact in regards to being a little looser in their prescribing habits. They probably targeted them first. Then, it's not difficult to make inferences based off of feedback from them. The truth is, there are so many different variables that go into why Afrezza will succeed or fail. Insurance price, doctors willingness to prescribe, patient willingness to change a potentially lifelong brand that they're comfortable with and understand, etc. We need to remember that Afrezza didn't reinvent the wheel. There hasn't really been a dire need for a new insulin medication. The stuff we have now, while inferior, still produces decent results. If you own something that does what it's supposed to and gives you the results you expect, do you listen to people that try to sell you on "the next best thing?" I usually blow those people off. I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm saying it's even more improbable than before that Afrezza becomes what we all hope for it to become. By all means, do your research. Just make sure that you're being fair to yourself by looking for the rule and not the exception. An analogy I would draw for the feeling I get after reading some posters on this board is that they would sell their house to buy every powerball ticket they could afford and then be devastated when they didn't win. In reality, they didn't realize that what they were dumping their money into wasn't really that wise of an investment in the first place. It still makes me sad the people that put more money into this stock with the expectation that it will return appreciably. Any investment should be met with extreme caution and speculative at best. What sign, thus far, has Afrezza shown that it can be successful? How could that not come into consideration? Viehbacher was ready to innovate the company and that cost him his job. Afrezza would have only succeeded at Sanofi if it undercut existing Apidra and Lantus revenues. Sanofi and Board were not willing to take the company in that direction (and honestly rightfully so for business sense, 65% of revenues of a product that will eventually undercut Apidra and Lantus revenues). I would have loved to have seen the strategy Viehbacher and Mannkind originally came up with because obviously that changed during the new realm. Very much an uphill battle right now but the new partner needs to be a hungry small-medium size player doing everything they can to gain market share. I think it's evident big pharma, unless they own 100% of Afrezza won't risk cannibalizing their existing diabetes portfolio.
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Post by stevil on Jan 8, 2016 19:19:01 GMT -5
I think you answered your own question. I think if SNY believed Afrezza has blockbuster potential, and the ends justify the means, they buy it outright and keep 100%. At this point, I pray Al is not white-knuckling Afrezza so much that he wouldn't even take a reasonable amount for it. I have to believe that if anyone was interested in buying Afrezza it would be theirs. We're in dire straits right now. In any case, I made the point earlier in this thread that if SNY truly believed Afrezza would later come back to hurt that same market share you're arguing they're trying to protect, they wouldn't have let it go so easily. They are fools if they are not 100% confident Afrezza is not a worthwhile investment.
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Post by factspls88 on Jan 8, 2016 20:03:12 GMT -5
Stevil,
I've read all of your commentary, and some of it I agree with, some of it I don't. However, I am not going to get into the nitty gritty of what you have written. What I am interested in is why you are remaining invested in MNKD at this time, especially since much of what you write seems to make the case for packing your bags and going home. I am not doing this to brand you as a soft basher but rather to understand your thinking in light of what you've stated in this thread. I'm sure many are reassessing their commitment to MNKD and would find your position helpful. Perhaps you could simply bullet point you key reasons for remaining invested, and if your reason is simply that your investment is so small it's worth the gamble so be it. Thanks.
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Post by stevil on Jan 8, 2016 20:53:39 GMT -5
Stevil, I've read all of your commentary, and some of it I agree with, some of it I don't. However, I am not going to get into the nitty gritty of what you have written. What I am interested in is why you are remaining invested in MNKD at this time, especially since much of what you write seems to make the case for packing your bags and going home. I am not doing this to brand you as a soft basher but rather to understand your thinking in light of what you've stated in this thread. I'm sure many are reassessing their commitment to MNKD and would find your position helpful. Perhaps you could simply bullet point you key reasons for remaining invested, and if your reason is simply that your investment is so small it's worth the gamble so be it. Thanks. I have stated since... September? that I was a long on paper but short in theory but would never short this company. I didn't have the conviction to sell when I knew I should have. I'm currently in school so I've got plenty of time to wait for investments to bud and this was in my Roth account, which I use for my riskier investments. To be honest with you, I'm probably not the person you want to tell you why you should keep your shares. You might want to ask the people who keep adding to their position- they're the ones that are still finding value right now. Word of caution, many of them are the ones that say - "Big money has an agenda. Special interest groups shape reality. Lobbyists always get their way. Shorts can manipulate our stock at will.... And they all want to squash Afrezza." And they respond with, "Coooooool. Let's buy more!" - So be careful with that. Unless you're going to war with a slingshot and 5 stones and know the Almighty is on your side... You are correct, the only reason I'm still holding is because of the price. I am a bit of a risk taker. I play probabilities. At the time I made my 'wager', I felt it was a good bet (reward justified the odds). Time has proven otherwise, and despite what popular belief is on the board, the value of the company has changed not only in market cap, but also in perception since FDA approval. I'm not sure what it will take for me to jump back in at this point- all I know is I'm far less trusting of this company than I was before so I'll likely miss a few dollars on its ride back up if it gets there. But that's ok. If it's as good as we think, I could miss a multiple of 10 and there still be plenty to catch. MNKD management has completely lost my trust and will now have to show me proof of their words before they'll get it back. Their lack of communication and defense of the SNY partnership (although I can understand why they would) did it for me. I won't ever listen to what they say from now on. I'll wait for the press or other third party to release any news and go from there. I hold great respect for our moderator, mnholdem, and have sent him private messages asking his advice on a couple things. If your request was sincere, he'd probably be one of the first people I turned you to because he knows why he believes what he believes. Let him try to convince you. Another overly verbose post of mine- all to say, invest at your own risk. There is still an incredible amount of potential here. However, in my opinion, the odds of ever realizing that potential are so severely small to none. But you already knew I'd say that...
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Post by kball on Jan 8, 2016 21:24:20 GMT -5
I'm still one who holds Stevils posts in high regard. How anyone could have been through the last 18 months, and especially the last 4 months, and especially the last 2 weeks and be angry with the things he's writing about is really beyond me.
Now since he's younger than some of us here and at the start of his career, its likely he doesn't have near what some others here have invested and lost so maybe that gives him a more balanced perspective.
The people we should be most angry with imo are 1. ourselves 2. Sanofi 3. Mannkind management 4. Wall Street 5. shill publishing 6. random forum posters
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Post by jefferson on Jan 8, 2016 22:59:36 GMT -5
Kball: probably the most accurate post in the history of this message board. Unfortunately.
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Post by kball on Jan 8, 2016 23:57:47 GMT -5
Probably shoulda had FDA in there too. 2.5 or 3.5 take your pick.
Can't blame those who are angry, or even those still hopeful. Myself? I'll wait for good news or a rising stock price before any mood change from my current forlorn.
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Post by nylefty on Jan 9, 2016 0:46:02 GMT -5
On July 8th, 2015 Stevil said:
Forgive me, but I'll be bowing out from here and just lurking on the board. It doesn't appear I'm adding anything to the discussion anyway.
Talk about promises broken.
I'm so fed up with the bashers on this board that my hope for a turnaround is now motivated more by a desire to see them eat crow than it is by my desire to show a profit on my investment.
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Post by charleyd on Jan 9, 2016 1:41:36 GMT -5
This is all well and good, but why don't people spend their efforts researching companies like MNKD that went bankrupt to draw parallels? Y'all wonder why you were blind to what happened yet you only allow yourself to see half the story... Open both eyes, then make your judgement... I'll take the bait. This website provides what appears to be a comprehensive list of Biotech/Pharma bankruptcies going back to 2007: www.biospace.com/news_subject_all_results.aspx?CatagoryId=40096It is quite depressing reading through it, but it does not really validate the notion that MNKD's demise is a done deal. The overwhelming majority of bankruptcies occurred for developmental companies that did not have an FDA approved product. The four that I did find are Dendreon and Affymax in 2014, Savient in 2013, and Oscient in 2009. Affymax is a special case because a post-approval safety issue was discovered with its product, leading to a subsequent revocation of FDA approval. I found no instance in which the dissolution of a partnership agreement was listed as a factor, so you can make a case that if Sanofi's snub leads to MNKD becoming bankrupt, then it will be a unique instance. Another data point that should be considered is the number of Al Mann founded companies that have gone bankrupt. The answer to that is zero as far as I can tell. The truth of the matter is that MNKD should already be bankrupt, and Afrezza not exist as an approved drug, based on this data and the fact that Afrezza experienced two FDA rejections. That this did not happen speaks to Al's old-school ethics and general stubbornness, which I am counting on, but which also seems to often be overlooked.
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Post by stevil on Jan 9, 2016 1:51:43 GMT -5
On July 8th, 2015 Stevil said: Forgive me, but I'll be bowing out from here and just lurking on the board. It doesn't appear I'm adding anything to the discussion anyway.Talk about promises broken. I'm so fed up with the bashers on this board that my hope for a turnaround is now motivated more by a desire to see them eat crow than it is by my desire to show a profit on my investment. I'll gladly eat my crow while my shares increase in value with yours. I want to be wrong. We're not on opposite teams. And my desire for a turnaround is so that all here may benefit, regardless of their viewpoint of MNKD. I'm sorry for calling it like I see it. Perhaps a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down was sage advice after all. Hey, whatever helps...
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