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Post by LosingMyBullishness on Aug 29, 2016 6:27:29 GMT -5
Is it just me or is this thread really going berserk? It seems that Symphony is right now releasing numbers for the past week on Monday instead of Friday. Liane pointed out that this happened last year as well. It could be that they have to publish it on Monday to the latest and as a courtesy does so most of the time already on Friday.
In the past at least one member had access to this proprietary data (which was great) and now this access has gone. Mike was so nice to step in and publish data and people started to tweet him for updates. I interpreted his tweet that he felt that investors should not take it for granted that the CCO is dutifully looking up data on weekends and tweets them to investors instantly.
So Boy starts sending out empty comments and assumptions and this turned into: The numbers must be horrible. Is MNKD going private now?
What?
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Post by boytroy88 on Aug 29, 2016 6:27:53 GMT -5
@sportsrancho - Don't know...weird.
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Post by boytroy88 on Aug 29, 2016 6:30:14 GMT -5
Is it just me or is this thread really going berserk? It seems that Symphony is right now releasing numbers for the past week on Monday instead of Friday. Liane pointed out that this happened last year as well. It could be that they have to publish it on Monday to the latest and as a courtesy does so most of the time already on Friday. In the past at least one member had access to this proprietary data (which was great) and now this access has gone. Mike was so nice to step in and publish data and people started to tweet him for updates. I interpreted his tweet that he felt that investors should not take it for granted that the CCO is dutifully looking up data on weekends and tweets them to investors instantly. So Boy starts sending out empty comments and assumptions and this turned into: The numbers must be horrible. Is MNKD going private now? What? I didn't send out empty comments. I copied the twitter post and pasted it in my OP but because Mike deleted the post it now shows nothing. If you quote the OP you will see that it says there's an empty placeholder for the deleted post.
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Post by kball on Aug 29, 2016 7:07:30 GMT -5
Whatever that latest tweet from Mike meant, he tweeted it at midnight on a weekend
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Post by liane on Aug 29, 2016 7:19:54 GMT -5
I think we still have members that have access to Symphony #'s, just that Symphony has been late the last 2 weeks. Who knows if this is a new trend or just that everyone is on summer vacation - time will tell. I'll add the numbers I've just read to the table. If anyone has $TRx, I'll add that when it becomes available.
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Post by sophie on Aug 29, 2016 11:59:02 GMT -5
MC tweeted on July 5 that the boots hit the ground the week prior.
I thought I saw somewhere here that there were 70 dedicated reps?
I get that they are still giving out sample packs, but that started 2 months ago now. Shouldn't there be more of an uptick in NRx's? Have the latest issues been reported, other than the 30% lost to Medicare/Medicaid?
Except for a couple weeks in June/July that are outliers, the NRx's don't seem to be increasing. If anyone has any good data, would you pass it along?
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Post by mannmade on Aug 29, 2016 16:37:40 GMT -5
60 or so reps and 10 NP's for direct support to docs and patients.
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Post by anderson on Aug 29, 2016 19:28:31 GMT -5
Okay at 70 new patients per week. This is how I see it play out if docs are skeptical and only try it with one patient to see how it goes. week 1: 70 NRX week 2: 70 NRX week 3: 70 NRX week 4: 140 NRX, titration pack done next week and 70 people need NRX for actual dosage, so +70 NRX week 5: 140 NRX week 6: 140 NRX week 7: 140 NRX week 8: 140 NRX (we would be around here) week 9: 140 NRX week 10: 140 NRX week 11: 140 NRX week 12: 210 NRX, A1C's for first patient is back docs adds second patient to his trial(+70 NRX) week 13: 210 NRX week 14: 210 NRX week 15: 210 NRX week 16: 210 NRX, TRX 280 (next week 70 people need refills)(first bump to refill rate.)
So slow numbers till docs are confident with Afrezza. Need to get the frequency of how often a doc prescribes Afrezza up. How many patients do they need on Afrezza with good results to instill that confidence?
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Post by oldfishtowner on Aug 29, 2016 19:36:49 GMT -5
MC tweeted on July 5 that the boots hit the ground the week prior. I thought I saw somewhere here that there were 70 dedicated reps? I get that they are still giving out sample packs, but that started 2 months ago now. Shouldn't there be more of an uptick in NRx's? Have the latest issues been reported, other than the 30% lost to Medicare/Medicaid? Except for a couple weeks in June/July that are outliers, the NRx's don't seem to be increasing. If anyone has any good data, would you pass it along? They were not distributing sample packs back then. On the Q2 CC Castagna said that physicians were telling reps that they would start prescribing when they received sample packs. Again on the CC (8/916), Castagna said that sample packs were just being shipped. So it is likely that physicians offices were beginning to receive the sample packs the week ending 8/19, i.e, the week for which scripts were just reported today. And considering that Afrezza is still burdened with prior authorization requirements, you shouldn't have expected to sample packs converting to scripts and contributing to NRx just yet. Give it another week or two before expecting to see anything. Also remember that we are dealing with a declining base. That is, the scripts from existing patients from 11 or 12 weeks prior that are rolling over into NRx or RRx have been declining. In a couple of weeks this translates into a decline in scripts rolling over of about 35 and another decline of 50 in another 2 or 3 weeks. So even if the sales force is successful in generating new patients and ramping up NRx, the rise in NRx could slow or there could even be a decline in NRx a couple of times over the next 2 months due to the drop in scripts the weeks of 6/17 and 7/8.
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Post by sophie on Aug 29, 2016 21:32:34 GMT -5
I must have missed that part of the CC, thank you. Did you mean to say TRx will be down because of June/July numbers?
NRx still doesn't make sense to me now that we're 2 months into having fully dedicated salespeople. There has to be some resistance somewhere. Just wish someone know what it was. We're not even averaging 1 script per sales rep right now over the weekly averages before they were employed. Am I the only one that is concerned that a better oiled engine is hardly yielding better results? I guess it doesn't matter since we'll find out in a month or so what's going on. Just have to keep waiting.
Not trying to whine or vent. Just trying to figure out what's going on. Poor Mike probably can't keep up with all of his email.
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Post by mnkdfann on Aug 29, 2016 22:09:21 GMT -5
NRx still doesn't make sense to me now that we're 2 months into having fully dedicated salespeople. There has to be some resistance somewhere. Just wish someone know what it was. We're not even averaging 1 script per sales rep right now over the weekly averages before they were employed. Am I the only one that is concerned that a better oiled engine is hardly yielding better results? Not trying to whine or vent. Just trying to figure out what's going on. Over at SeekingAlpha, someone posted Linked-in profiles for two key members of the MNKD sales team. I was less than impressed. One of them was a cheer-leading instructor for a year, then a tour guide for a year, and a pharma sales rep for all of 10 months. That is the Senior Area Pharmaceutical Director for Nashville. The other graduated three years ago in sport management, then went into selling radio and tv ads. That is the Area Business Manager for the South Carolina area. I'm sure they are nice people, but I really hope and pray that their levels of experience are not representative of those for the remainder of the sales team. tinyurl.com/jm5kf9htinyurl.com/z3mkx93
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Post by surplusvalue on Aug 29, 2016 22:44:36 GMT -5
I must have missed that part of the CC, thank you. Did you mean to say TRx will be down because of June/July numbers? NRx still doesn't make sense to me now that we're 2 months into having fully dedicated salespeople. There has to be some resistance somewhere. Just wish someone know what it was. We're not even averaging 1 script per sales rep right now over the weekly averages before they were employed. Am I the only one that is concerned that a better oiled engine is hardly yielding better results? I guess it doesn't matter since we'll find out in a month or so what's going on. Just have to keep waiting. Not trying to whine or vent. Just trying to figure out what's going on. Poor Mike probably can't keep up with all of his email. Of course there is resistance since most physicians are conservative regarding changing their usual day to day long serving practices (even assuming that sales reps even get an actual face to face with the physicians in the first place which is itself an unreasonable assumption. You are assuming that the number of sales people and or the number of visits will translate into actual scripts. Doesn't work that way as a number of posters have indicated why in other threads regarding scripts including the non linear "stepped" process of getting new scripts. In addition to this there needs to be a demand side pushing the endos to write scripts. That part of the process is just beginning by addressing the patient community. Far too early to assess "results". See the timelines for this second "consumer" phase. See peppy's post early in this thread: mnkd.proboards.com/thread/6043/additional-capitalAlso see mnkd.proboards.com/thread/6105/drug-sale-experiencesAnd assuming you could even get 70 new scripts per week see Anderson's post: mnkd.proboards.com/thread/6107/reverse-strategy
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Post by cjm18 on Aug 29, 2016 22:50:29 GMT -5
NRx still doesn't make sense to me now that we're 2 months into having fully dedicated salespeople. There has to be some resistance somewhere. Just wish someone know what it was. We're not even averaging 1 script per sales rep right now over the weekly averages before they were employed. Am I the only one that is concerned that a better oiled engine is hardly yielding better results? Not trying to whine or vent. Just trying to figure out what's going on. Over at SeekingAlpha, someone posted Linked-in profiles for two key members of the MNKD sales team. I was less than impressed. One of them was a cheer-leading instructor for a year, then a tour guide for a year, and a pharma sales rep for all of 10 months. That is the Senior Area Pharmaceutical Director for Nashville. The other graduated three years ago in sport management, then went into selling radio and tv ads. That is the Area Business Manager for the South Carolina area. I'm sure they are nice people, but I really hope and pray that their levels of experience are not representative of those for the remainder of the sales team. tinyurl.com/jm5kf9htinyurl.com/z3mkx93Not much experience but a top performer according to her linked-in profile.
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Post by sophie on Aug 29, 2016 23:32:04 GMT -5
I must have missed that part of the CC, thank you. Did you mean to say TRx will be down because of June/July numbers? NRx still doesn't make sense to me now that we're 2 months into having fully dedicated salespeople. There has to be some resistance somewhere. Just wish someone know what it was. We're not even averaging 1 script per sales rep right now over the weekly averages before they were employed. Am I the only one that is concerned that a better oiled engine is hardly yielding better results? I guess it doesn't matter since we'll find out in a month or so what's going on. Just have to keep waiting. Not trying to whine or vent. Just trying to figure out what's going on. Poor Mike probably can't keep up with all of his email. Of course there is resistance since most physicians are conservative regarding changing their usual day to day long serving practices (even assuming that sales reps even get an actual face to face with the physicians in the first place which is itself an unreasonable assumption. You are assuming that the number of sales people and or the number of visits will translate into actual scripts. Doesn't work that way as a number of posters have indicated why in other threads regarding scripts including the non linear "stepped" process of getting new scripts. In addition to this there needs to be a demand side pushing the endos to write scripts. That part of the process is just beginning by addressing the patient community. Far too early to assess "results". See the timelines for this second "consumer" phase. See peppy's post early in this thread: mnkd.proboards.com/thread/6043/additional-capitalAlso see mnkd.proboards.com/thread/6105/drug-sale-experiencesAnd assuming you could even get 70 new scripts per week see Anderson's post: mnkd.proboards.com/thread/6107/reverse-strategyI mean, if they're not being effective, why pay them? And if they're commission only, they won't be working for us long if they're not putting good numbers up. That's a very real possibility. Our team of 70 may dwindle down if they don't pull their weight. We can't really afford for that to happen. We're sort of past the point of mulligans and/or dead weight.
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Post by prvs on Aug 30, 2016 7:55:54 GMT -5
This is a reply by Mike C. to an LFD bashing article:
Diogenes, Almost 70% of diabetics are not at goal, this is something we need to focus on. As you may or may not know over 200 people with diabetes a day get amputations and ~6 people with diabetes an hour start dialysis because they haven't been able to control their blood sugars for a long time (http://tinyurl.com/zvs...). Now that you understand we are talking about a real disease with real challenges, I would like to highlight some issues with your article:
1) When you want to compare sales rep impact, don't compare and apple to an orange. Your analysis looks at a rep who has been in a territory calling on a doctor for 9+ months and you are comparing to a time period when we didn't even have a sales force present post the ADA meeting and then attempting to make conclusions about their impact. I would suggest you see what the impact our reps have after 9 months of calling on their customers before you say they are ineffective or have an low ROI.
2) Our sales force started the first week of July, mid-year when many lunch appointments were already booked. I am very proud my team has been able to stop an almost 12 month decline in NRx in less than 4 weeks of being in the field and demonstrate growth in NRx during the month of August despite a Medicare/Medicaid challenge. Don't forget for every rep we had, Sanofi had ~7-10 reps in a territory,therefore their NRx per rep would even be less than ours and we are doing this a fraction of the cost and have been making an immediate impact. We have had almost 200 new trialists who wrote their first Afrezza Rx in the last 13 weeks and have had a significant number of sample and copay card requests via our website in the last 4 weeks. These are programs we stated were launching in August and most have only landed in our sales reps hands in the last 3 weeks.
3) I joined MannKind <5 months ago and I would ask you to find a company or team who launched a fully integrated commercial team, built distribution capabilities, managed a smooth inventory transition across 80 distribution centers with new NDCs and built a new marketing campaign along with all the field tools to go with a launch in <90 days. This has to be a record for any company in this industry. I have been doing this a long time and companies spend tens of millions of dollars, a lot more people and 12+ months of planning.
4) While ADA was important for us to meet thought leaders, build international relationships and showcase our new data, this was the foundation of information that is required for us to file for a label change. This is not information our field team can use immediately, so I wouldn't expect an impact from this. I wish more doctors had time to read and review our publications as well as the ADA data as they would then understand our brand and likely prescribe it for even more patients.
5) Please note the significant number of NRx that were previously generated in 2015 rarely converted to refills week after week. Our focus is on making sure patients start appropriately and stay on our product. The strategy between MannKind and Sanofi are completely different and while I understand generating NRx's are important, it is more important we keep patients on our product once we get them and that is a big focus of ours. Everyone understands the beauty of compounding growth versus single hits.
Finally, regarding what Matt may or may not have said about the payor space is in the past. We have deep expertise in this area and are focused on removing barriers for patients to get access to our product. Afrezza has not had a price increase in 2 years, but many insurance companies still penalize patients by putting us on a higher copay/tier despite us holding the price of this product. We know the payor space well and unfortunately these things take time to make changes and I am confident we will share our value proposition with our payor colleagues and enhance access to Afrezza. However, at the current time we have created a reimbursement center to help patients get access to our product as efficiently as possible. It should also be noted that we have significant coverage for commercial plans, but Medicare is a challenge which is ironic because these are government insured patients/voters and the price increases in the insulin market are being paid for by all of us as taxpayers given this is the #1 expense category for payors and healthplans. We should be demanding Medicare open up access for Afrezza so that we can give patients another option that can help them control their disease.
In the future, I hope you find time to write about why insurance companies and Medicare plans are restricting patients access to a product that hasn't taken price increase and in effect are driving up patients out of pocket costs as well as our tax bills and how this prevents patients from getting access to our brand as they attempt to get their disease under control.
I joined this company because I know we will help patients and we serve an unmet need every single day. I get story after story of how our product changed the life of a person living with the disease, a spouse who got their husband back or parent who has more comfort that their college kid can control their disease without having their insulin pump attached to them. I recognize the financial situation of the company and the job of good leaders is to make the right short and long term decisions to grow and sustain. If anyone reacts to 1 week of NRx they are short sighted. This company has survived many doom and gloom reports all the way back to 2005. We finally have our brand FDA approved, in our hands and we will ensure we make Al Mann's vision a reality.
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