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Post by slugworth008 on Jan 4, 2017 17:19:50 GMT -5
Being that Stuart is in his mid-50s I would guess he is not ready to retire with that few dollars he has in Amgen stock. My guess is he is looking for a big payout sometime in the future. You don't go from a sure thing to a very risky opportunity unless you have knowledge & confidence in what is going to happen. Why all the job postings lately if this company is truly on the ropes and has nothing coming in terms of new investment. If the company is 60 days from Being delisted on NASDAQ do you think this guy would take the risk to join MannKind. With his credentials he could go to any other big Pharma you want to or for that matter any other public company. I'm not disagreeing with anything you said as i agree 100%. I have been and remain in this for the long haul boom or bust. Just thinking out loud via post saying my dream is to hit the cash out button someday which is one of many reasons i chose to invest in MNKD. Ah yes, the elusive "cash-out" button...Would love to hit that with some of my shares someday as well. Now the million dollar question - Is what is on deck (if anything) to prevent us from being delisted??? Surely Stu is aware of MNKD's present situation...and 60 days is right around the corner. With that being said we could pop over a buck easily with the right news - IMO. The suspense is killing me - and my portfolio.
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Post by cedafuntennis on Jan 4, 2017 19:00:45 GMT -5
I would expect the same but the pink elephant in the room is that Amgen had unlimited resource where Mannkind used to have unlimited resources and now it's a MAJOR unknown at best. But if he took this role out of challenge and opportunity to grow and not out of desperation, he would know more than us. On the other hand, there were other senior people who joined as I said the same about them just to be disillusioned after 10 months or so.
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Post by brotherm1 on Jan 4, 2017 20:32:44 GMT -5
I was wondering what the deal was so I talked a a friend at Amgen. This is an Amgen press release from early November about an appointment effective Dec 9th - Amgen Appoints Lori Johnston As Senior Vice President, Human Resources. Lori was recruited externally and reports directly to the CEO. Rumor has it she was bought in to clean up the HR department. My guess is that Stuart was let go. That being the case he probably got a nice package and his options vested. In that position taking a Mannkind job makes sense - there is little downside. He has the Amgen package regardless, Mannkind are paying him well I expect, his CV still has him as the head of an HR department in a pharma. Worst case is Mannkind goes bust and he is back where he was two and a half months ago. Now this is all from reading the tea leaves and rumors but my gut feel is that it is not far from the mark. I want to add that if he was let go I don't see that as a negative. Over the years I have seen a lot of people let go and some of them were very good indeed. Seems odd he would have been let go after all the accolades Amgen gave him just as recently as in the June 2016 article posted further above. Perhaps he was "let go" but I'm thinking that's because be wanted to go. I lean towards thinking he was planning on becoming the big fish in this smaller pond for many months. Mannkind has advertised a lot of new positions this year which indicate their plans to expand. They still have a job or two advertised from back in June. I don't recall ever seeing a position for a human rescource officer advertised before. I'm thinking they intentionally never posted the position, knowing all along - for perhpas much of last year - that they knew who they wanted and would bring him in when the time was right. I'm sure Mike knew him well when he also worked with Amgen.
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Post by sayhey24 on Jan 4, 2017 20:46:14 GMT -5
How many people does MNKD employ, less than 200? That's less than I use to have in one of my labs and I had no Chief People Officer. I had an HR rep in another building to deal with benefits and whiners and they were not getting paid 6 figures. I sure hope this hire signals great things to come and more than the typical HR job. Even better if he was taking no salary and working for warrants. Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at Amgen sounds expensive. If he can really help to rapidly transform MannKind and help afrezza realize its potential, I am all for it. I sure hope Matt and Stuart are really close to something really really big and that its not the case that they have been helping to test RLS's new product.
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Post by mnholdem on Jan 4, 2017 20:55:38 GMT -5
I wonder why the PR states that the new CPO's responsibilities is "West Coast Facilities". Why not all of them, including Danbury CT? Curious description.
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Post by snowballsmommy on Jan 4, 2017 21:02:30 GMT -5
I wonder why the PR states that the new CPO's responsibilities is "West Coast Facilities". Why not all of them, including Danbury CT? Curious description. I wondered that as well!
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Post by letitride on Jan 4, 2017 21:06:52 GMT -5
I wonder why the PR states that the new CPO's responsibilities is "West Coast Facilities". Why not all of them, including Danbury CT? Curious description. Global expansion someone needs to stay home and anchor the original ranch
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Post by bioexec25 on Jan 4, 2017 21:07:08 GMT -5
That's a very diplomatic way to put it Mnholdem. A C-level officer with a regional remit for a small number of people. What's next CPO east coast or Chief Suppy Chain Officer east coast. Very strange unless that was just an error.
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Post by kc on Jan 4, 2017 21:29:53 GMT -5
How many people does MNKD employ, less than 200? That's less than I use to have in one of my labs and I had no Chief People Officer. I had an HR rep in another building to deal with benefits and whiners and they were not getting paid 6 figures. I sure hope this hire signals great things to come and more than the typical HR job. Even better if he was taking no salary and working for warrants. Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at Amgen sounds expensive. If he can really help to rapidly transform MannKind and help afrezza realize its potential, I am all for it. I sure hope Matt and Stuart are really close to something really really big and that its not the case that they have been helping to test RLS's new product. There were 17,900 employees according to the 2015 annual report. I'm sure he was making seven figures.
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Post by agedhippie on Jan 5, 2017 5:14:55 GMT -5
I was wondering what the deal was so I talked a a friend at Amgen. This is an Amgen press release from early November about an appointment effective Dec 9th - Amgen Appoints Lori Johnston As Senior Vice President, Human Resources. Lori was recruited externally and reports directly to the CEO. Rumor has it she was bought in to clean up the HR department. My guess is that Stuart was let go. That being the case he probably got a nice package and his options vested. In that position taking a Mannkind job makes sense - there is little downside. He has the Amgen package regardless, Mannkind are paying him well I expect, his CV still has him as the head of an HR department in a pharma. Worst case is Mannkind goes bust and he is back where he was two and a half months ago. Now this is all from reading the tea leaves and rumors but my gut feel is that it is not far from the mark. I want to add that if he was let go I don't see that as a negative. Over the years I have seen a lot of people let go and some of them were very good indeed. Seems odd he would have been let go after all the accolades Amgen gave him just as recently as in the June 2016 article posted further above. Perhaps he was "let go" but I'm thinking that's because be wanted to go. I lean towards thinking he was planning on becoming the big fish in this smaller pond for many months. Mannkind has advertised a lot of new positions this year which indicate their plans to expand. They still have a job or two advertised from back in June. I don't recall ever seeing a position for a human rescource officer advertised before. I'm thinking they intentionally never posted the position, knowing all along - for perhpas much of last year - that they knew who they wanted and would bring him in when the time was right. I'm sure Mike knew him well when he also worked with Amgen. Why do I think he was pushed? A combination of things. Firstly the rumor mill at Amgen Secondly the timing of events. The first was early November announcing Lori's appointment as SVP in charge of HR reporting to the CEO. This seems to say that Stuart is no longer in the picture or she would have been reporting to him rather than the CEO. She had worked for Amgen in HR before going to Celanese so she was a known quantity to management. Third - California is an "at will" state so Stuart could have just walked. I would have expected him to have had the Mannkind job lined up, given two weeks notice, and walked (assuming Amgen hadn't marched him out of the door immediately). Of course collusion is by no means out of the question. I could see them deciding they needed to make changes in HR (they really do!) and that Stuart was not the person to do it. They recruit Lori who they already know and get her out of Celanese where she was making over $1M per year plus another $800K in stock awards so that cannot have been cheap. Now it's difficult to see how this sort of change could be kept from Stuart so they probably offered him a package for the transition which included vesting any stock options. I could also see him reaching out to Mike and his other contacts, Mike sells him inside Mannkind and we are done. December 9th rolls around, Stuart picks up a fat pay off has a month off and starts in the New Year with Mannkind. I don't know if it's true but it feels it to me.
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Post by sayhey24 on Jan 5, 2017 6:28:24 GMT -5
Seems odd he would have been let go after all the accolades Amgen gave him just as recently as in the June 2016 article posted further above. Perhaps he was "let go" but I'm thinking that's because be wanted to go. I lean towards thinking he was planning on becoming the big fish in this smaller pond for many months. Mannkind has advertised a lot of new positions this year which indicate their plans to expand. They still have a job or two advertised from back in June. I don't recall ever seeing a position for a human rescource officer advertised before. I'm thinking they intentionally never posted the position, knowing all along - for perhpas much of last year - that they knew who they wanted and would bring him in when the time was right. I'm sure Mike knew him well when he also worked with Amgen. Why do I think he was pushed? A combination of things. Firstly the rumor mill at Amgen Secondly the timing of events. The first was early November announcing Lori's appointment as SVP in charge of HR reporting to the CEO. This seems to say that Stuart is no longer in the picture or she would have been reporting to him rather than the CEO. She had worked for Amgen in HR before going to Celanese so she was a known quantity to management. Third - California is an "at will" state so Stuart could have just walked. I would have expected him to have had the Mannkind job lined up, given two weeks notice, and walked (assuming Amgen hadn't marched him out of the door immediately). Of course collusion is by no means out of the question. I could see them deciding they needed to make changes in HR (they really do!) and that Stuart was not the person to do it. They recruit Lori who they already know and get her out of Celanese where she was making over $1M per year plus another $800K in stock awards so that cannot have been cheap. Now it's difficult to see how this sort of change could be kept from Stuart so they probably offered him a package for the transition which included vesting any stock options. I could also see him reaching out to Mike and his other contacts, Mike sells him inside Mannkind and we are done. December 9th rolls around, Stuart picks up a fat pay off has a month off and starts in the New Year with Mannkind. I don't know if it's true but it feels it to me. I suspect you are absolutely correct. If Stuart is 55ish, "early retirement" is pretty typical. I just hope you are wrong about MNKD paying him a lot but rather he really believes in MNKD and willing to take the risk and is working for warrants. I sure hope this is the beginning of more good news.
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Post by sayhey24 on Jan 5, 2017 6:31:45 GMT -5
I wonder why the PR states that the new CPO's responsibilities is "West Coast Facilities". Why not all of them, including Danbury CT? Curious description. I suspect this is the facility which was moved from Danbury to CA to support RLS. He probably has operational responsibility. With RLS moving forward this should become significant.
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Post by mnholdem on Jan 5, 2017 8:01:28 GMT -5
Valencia is only a few miles from Thousand Oaks, where Amgen's USA headquarters is located. It's not that far-fetched to think that Mike Castagna may occasionally have lunch with former associates. Who knows how this hire really happened?
The reasons why Dr. Tross left Amgen are irrelevant. What is relevant, IMHO, is the question "why has MannKind hired him?"
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Off-Topic: If you want a good read, I highly recommend this book by the former CEO of Amgen.
Amgen's difficulty with attracting partners during their startup phase reminds me of the struggles that MannKind Corporation is dealing with today, in particular because of industry skepticism about new and/or disruptive technology. Here's an excerpt from Chapter 6:
“Our search for a corporate partner started at home. Much to our shock, not a single U.S. pharmaceutical firm showed interest. […] Abbott Laboratories, one of Amgen’s original investors, had the opportunity to be involved in the Epogen project. CEO and Chairman Bob Schoellhorn turned it down. He’d been influenced by Abbott’s chief chemist, who apparently didn’t think much of drugs based on large proteins. As we would discover, that bias was not unique to Abbott; in fact it dominated traditional pharma. One company’s representative informed us that his bosses were passing on Epogen because the opportunity was too small; their market research department predicted sales would never eclipse $50 million per year (For the record, the drug generates $10 billion in annual revenue. Some market research!).” - Page 126
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Post by silentknight on Jan 5, 2017 8:27:33 GMT -5
Valencia is only a few miles from Thousand Oaks, where Amgen's USA headquarters is located. It's not that far-fetched to think that Mike Castagna may occasionally have lunch with former associates. Who knows how this hire really happened?
The reasons why Dr. Tross left Amgen are irrelevant. What is relevant, IMHO, is the question "why has MannKind hired him?"
---
Off-Topic: If you want a good read, I highly recommend this book by the former CEO of Amgen.
Amgen's difficulty with attracting partners during their startup phase reminds me of the struggles that MannKind Corporation is dealing with today, in particular because of industry skepticism about new and/or disruptive technology. Here's an excerpt from Chapter 6:
“Our search for a corporate partner started at home. Much to our shock, not a single U.S. pharmaceutical firm showed interest. […] Abbott Laboratories, one of Amgen’s original investors, had the opportunity to be involved in the Epogen project. CEO and Chairman Bob Schoellhorn turned it down. He’d been influenced by Abbott’s chief chemist, who apparently didn’t think much of drugs based on large proteins. As we would discover, that bias was not unique to Abbott; in fact it dominated traditional pharma. One company’s representative informed us that his bosses were passing on Epogen because the opportunity was too small; their market research department predicted sales would never eclipse $50 million per year (For the record, the drug generates $10 billion in annual revenue. Some market research!).” - Page 126 If MNKD is experiencing many of Amgen's challenges now, I certainly hope they also share in the levels of success later on. One can only hope...
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Post by dictatorsaurus on Jan 5, 2017 8:36:18 GMT -5
So Amgen is buying Mannkind now?
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