|
|
Post by longliner on Aug 2, 2019 10:16:48 GMT -5
Of course I care, I always like to be right.  I give you two thumbs up on that. It's the human condition I suppose. |
|
|
|
Post by sportsrancho on Aug 17, 2019 7:41:59 GMT -5
Question from Nadent...
@rooksleanne Leanne, has Bill shared performance metrics for VDex? He seems bright and has accomplished but without # from him to indicate how his clinics are performing, how can anyone make an informed decision to support his claiming he knows how to sell Afrezza effectively and efficiently? What is his plan to expand VDex clinics - how many can he open in a 12 month period and can he demonstrate that he has both the capital, people and infrastructure to scale rapidly? I'm not happy with how things are progressing at Mannkind but change for the sake of change without definitive information and a strategy won't yield positive results. CFO & General Council get the credit for the refi. Not sure why MNKD needs expensive HR guy and MC seems like his accomplishment is changing Afrezza packaging. Hard to attract and retain good sales people. Must get one more TS deal in '19 but a couple would make it easier to attract more partners ie financial & operational stability, confidence.
|
|
|
|
Post by lakers on Aug 17, 2019 13:34:51 GMT -5
Question from Nadent... @rooksleanne Leanne, has Bill shared performance metrics for VDex? He seems bright and has accomplished but without # from him to indicate how his clinics are performing, how can anyone make an informed decision to support his claiming he knows how to sell Afrezza effectively and efficiently? What is his plan to expand VDex clinics - how many can he open in a 12 month period and can he demonstrate that he has both the capital, people and infrastructure to scale rapidly? I'm not happy with how things are progressing at Mannkind but change for the sake of change without definitive information and a strategy won't yield positive results. CFO & General Council get the credit for the refi. Not sure why MNKD needs expensive HR guy and MC seems like his accomplishment is changing Afrezza packaging. Hard to attract and retain good sales people. Must get one more TS deal in '19 but a couple would make it easier to attract more partners ie financial & operational stability, confidence. I like VDex approach in managed care. Bill needs Mnkd pps appreciates a lot to expand VDex. IMHO, Martine wants to partially control or monopolize TS platform before Mnkd signs up with more partners. It’s inevitable. UT’d start buying in phases to benefit also from ~ 2.7B NOL. UT can buy up to 49% to control TS and enjoy the NOL. In theory, UT can give Mnkd a very generous manufacturing contract at high margin. UT can make less profit allowing Mnkd more share of the pie helping Mnkd profitable thereby taking advantage of NOL. Potentially as Mnkd largest SH, UT can make Mnkd licenses Afrezza out to VDex and regional partners with upfront fees if possible, royalty and manufacturing contracts to burn off AMPH insulin contract. Mnkd’d Stop marketing Afrezza and get rid of its sale force, Mktg, top-heavy CPO, CMKO, CCO, This will stop Afrezza loss. With Inhaling molecule R&D outsourced to Mnkd, royalty, manufacturing contract, Mnkd will become profitable and not paying tax for many years. It’s like Bermuda tax shelter. Once NOL is exhausted, UT can buy the remaining 51%. investors.mannkindcorp.com/stock-information/ownership-profileThe 3 largest SH are BlackRock, Vangard, Mann Foundation owning 6.93, 5.18, 4.75% respectively. UT needs to buy at least 7% to become largest SH, or 17% which is larger than the previous three combined and ask for 2 seats on the board. All SH’s would want Mnkd mkt cap higher rhan $2B. I doubt anyone including BoD cares how whether via Afrezza route or TS platform route as long as it’s legal and achievable. BoD has the fiduciary duty to increase SH value. That’s their top priority. If Bill can come up with $10M, he can buy > 5% of Mnkd to get BoD’s Attention. |
|
|
|
Post by golfeveryday on Aug 17, 2019 16:11:11 GMT -5
Question from Nadent... @rooksleanne Leanne, has Bill shared performance metrics for VDex? He seems bright and has accomplished but without # from him to indicate how his clinics are performing, how can anyone make an informed decision to support his claiming he knows how to sell Afrezza effectively and efficiently? What is his plan to expand VDex clinics - how many can he open in a 12 month period and can he demonstrate that he has both the capital, people and infrastructure to scale rapidly? I'm not happy with how things are progressing at Mannkind but change for the sake of change without definitive information and a strategy won't yield positive results. CFO & General Council get the credit for the refi. Not sure why MNKD needs expensive HR guy and MC seems like his accomplishment is changing Afrezza packaging. Hard to attract and retain good sales people. Must get one more TS deal in '19 but a couple would make it easier to attract more partners ie financial & operational stability, confidence. I like VDex approach in managed care. Bill needs Mnkd pps appreciates a lot to expand VDex. IMHO, Martine wants to partially control or monopolize TS platform before Mnkd signs up with more partners. It’s inevitable UT’d start buying in phases to benefit also from ~ 2.7B NOL. UT can buy up to 49% to control TS and enjoy the NOL. In theory, UT can give Mnkd a very generous manufacturing contract at high margin. UT can make less profit allowing Mnkd more share of the pie helping Mnkd profitable thereby taking advantage of NOL. Potentially as Mnkd largest SH, UT can make Mnkd licenses Afrezza out to VDex and regional partners with upfront fees if possible, royalty and manufacturing contracts to burn off AMPH insulin contract. Mnkd’d Stop marketing Afrezza and get rid of its sale force. This will stop Afrezza loss. With Inhaling molecule R&D outsourced to Mnkd, royalty, manufacturing contract, Mnkd will become profitable and not paying tax for many years. It’s like Bermuda tax shelter. Once NOL is exhausted, UT can buy the remaining 51%. investors.mannkindcorp.com/stock-information/ownership-profileThe 3 largest SH are BlackRock, Vangard, Mann Foundation owning 6.93, 5.18, 4.75% respectively. UT needs to buy at least 7% to become largest SH. Agree, and it would be reported at 5%. |
|
|
|
Post by nylefty on Aug 22, 2019 13:02:20 GMT -5
(Received this by email today, 8/22/2019}
Dear Supporters of HFM,
On August 7, I last posted about an exchange between HFM and MannKind CEO Mike Castagna, in which Mike suggested that he would make certain members of the management team available to meet with HFM. (see News/Events section at http://www.hopeformannkind.com). My plan for that meeting was to continue to understand management's thinking behind their sales and marketing strategy for Afrezza, and to press for change along the lines that I have outlined in some of the videos. I must reluctantly inform you that I don't see that meeting happening any time soon.
Recently, I received an email from Mike effectively foreclosing the meeting. He is upset about the criticism that HFM has leveled at him and has indicated that he doesn't wish to cooperate further.
However, this will not arrest our efforts to hold management and the BOD accountable. We have strong shareholder support for this initiative for change.
In addition, within the next 60 days, Vdex, a key supporter of HFM, expects to share substantially more information about its own impact on Afrezza script-writing. Armed with this information, you will quickly gain a clearer understanding of the strategic value of Vdex' efforts.
We will continue to keep you informed about our progress.
Best Regards,
Bill McCullough
|
|
|
|
Post by uvula on Aug 22, 2019 14:14:20 GMT -5
This sounds like bad reality tv. If he has information to share why wait 60 days?
|
|
|
|
Post by agedhippie on Aug 22, 2019 16:49:56 GMT -5
This sounds like bad reality tv. If he has information to share why wait 60 days? Gathering current data? |
|
|
|
Post by Omega on Aug 22, 2019 17:20:36 GMT -5
(Received this by email today, 8/22/2019}
Dear Supporters of HFM,
On August 7, I last posted about an exchange between HFM and MannKind CEO Mike Castagna, in which Mike suggested that he would make certain members of the management team available to meet with HFM. (see News/Events section at http://www.hopeformannkind.com). My plan for that meeting was to continue to understand management's thinking behind their sales and marketing strategy for Afrezza, and to press for change along the lines that I have outlined in some of the videos. I must reluctantly inform you that I don't see that meeting happening any time soon.
Recently, I received an email from Mike effectively foreclosing the meeting. He is upset about the criticism that HFM has leveled at him and has indicated that he doesn't wish to cooperate further.
However, this will not arrest our efforts to hold management and the BOD accountable. We have strong shareholder support for this initiative for change.
In addition, within the next 60 days, Vdex, a key supporter of HFM, expects to share substantially more information about its own impact on Afrezza script-writing. Armed with this information, you will quickly gain a clearer understanding of the strategic value of Vdex' efforts.
We will continue to keep you informed about our progress.
Best Regards,
Bill McCullough
Small Excerpt/ Quote from Mike C from SO's newest article in reference to Bill/VDEX/HFM: (Its a good read seekingalpha.com/article/4287312-mannkind-fireside-chat-ceo-mike-castagna SO is ok with just a small quote from articles)Mike: "Spencer we appreciate the passion that motivates the HFM group, but we have not seen a credible plan from the people affiliated with HFM that we believe would drive any significant shareholder value. In fact, some of their ideas would likely hurt shareholders and put our company at risk. However, I believe we have shared interests in that they want to see MannKind succeed by helping more patients start on Afrezza, invest in our pipeline and ensure we are prudent with our capital. We did host a meeting between some HFM representatives and our general counsel and chief compliance officer to ensure they had an open forum for discussion. From that meeting, there were a few items Bill McCullough didn’t mention in his summary of the meeting that we think should be brought forward: 1. HFM pledge numbers. Bill admitted that his count of the number of shares pledged to HFM may not be accurate. We offered to validate his list against our list of beneficial owners (i.e., the actual owners of shares that are held in street name). He said that was a good idea, but to date he has not sent us his list. 2. Promotional tactics. Vdex’s marketing practices and statements about Afrezza triggered a letter of inquiry to us from the FDA. As a result of their tactics, we cannot be associated with Vdex without creating the perception that we condone off-label promotion. We made Bill aware of this issue, but his meeting notes and subsequent videos in which he criticizes MannKind management as unimaginative and constrained to conventional pharma thinking suggests that he doesn’t take FDA compliance seriously. 3. Sales model. In Bill’s latest video, he proposed that MannKind should stop promoting Afrezza in order to let the market find and adopt Afrezza all on its own, which Bill believes will save $50 million in selling expenses,. There is no quick way to summarize all that is wrong with that proposal, but (A) a 75-person sales force costs far less than $50 million and (B) we have a real world example when Sanofi walked away from Afrezza the NRx prescriptions declined for over nine months straight until we put our sales force out there. Cutting the entire sales force would therefore be expected to cause revenues to drop precipitously, but we would only realize a fraction of the savings that Bill projects. Is there a need to balance promotional spending against the revenue opportunity? Absolutely, which is why we cut the number of territories in 2019 by 25% compared to 2018 in order to focus on states and geographies that have a more favorable combination of active writers, payer coverage and energized sales people. Bill’s proposal also fails to consider the fixed costs associated with the manufacturing facility, the costs to maintain the NDA and its associated requirements and other ongoing obligations, such as costs related to running a public company. Bottom line: we don’t believe it is in the shareholders’ interests to turn the entire country into white space and hope that Afrezza succeeds on word of mouth alone as we have good reason to believe that this doesn’t work. 4. Board engagement. Bill claims, without any evidence, that the board of directors is not engaged. I think if Bill had attended any of our last several shareholder meetings, he could have interacted with our board members and seen firsthand that they are highly engaged, attuned to stockholder sentiment and acutely aware of the issues facing us. I can personally attest that our board doesn’t hesitate to challenge the management team or hold back when we aren’t delivering. For example, the average bonus payout over the last four years has been 50% of target and has been as low as 0%. Salary increases have fallen behind the rate of inflation. The board definitely holds our feet to the fire when it comes to performance against our objectives. I also want to highlight for shareholders that last fall we added Christine Mundkur to the board. Christine is an incredibly talented person – an attorney by trade, a successful pharmaceutical executive, and someone with considerable experience with inhaled platforms and 505(B)(2) pathways. She has been an excellent addition to the board and has only increased the energy and professionalism of the group.' |
|
|
|
Post by brotherm1 on Aug 22, 2019 17:40:19 GMT -5
HFM wants to invest in MNKD pipeline? I got lost with that statement.
|
|
|
|
Post by sportsrancho on Aug 22, 2019 17:48:09 GMT -5
HFM wants to invest in MNKD pipeline? I got lost with that statement. I believe he’s just stating they have shared interests because clearly they’re shareholders and are excited about the pipeline also. I understand what you mean though it didn’t really sound that way because of the way the sentence was written. |
|
|
|
Post by vdexdiabetes on Sept 12, 2019 19:03:31 GMT -5
I want to make a few comments about the Castagna rejoinder article posted by Spencer Osborn. I really don’t have the time to engage in an extensive back and forth with Mike, so I won’t be posting often.
Mikes posts/comments are littered with inaccuracies, many of them intentional. He wants to discredit Vdex and me, and I understand that. We’ve been critical. It’s natural to be hostile one’s critics. Unfortunately, Mike is undermined by his own lack of success in promoting Afrezza.
What Vdex has proven is that there is a strategy to make Afrezza the multi-billion-dollar annual drug that it should be. As I posted in another thread, we at Vdex will be sharing more information about that soon. Mike, for all his vaunted successes, hasn’t figured out how to do it. I honestly believe he doesn’t want to see Vdex/HFM succeed because of ego: he didn’t come up with the solution. That’s cynical, but it’s what I believe.
But the most important thing people on this board or otherwise should know is that Afrezza really is, as Al Mann said, one the most significant pharmaceutical advancements ever. Let me give some detail here: diabetes is medicine’s great failure. There’s no truer way to say it. Medicine has failed to control this disease. Billions have been spent and billions more will be, but none of the pharmaceutical agents does the job. Even if one gets a patient’s HbA1c down to the ADA-recommended 7%, that’s still not doing the job. Microvascular damage is still occurring at that level. Amputations, blindness, dialysis, etc. are still in the picture.
Afrezza changes all that. With Afrezza we can bring BG levels, in many cases, to normal: below 5.7%. With Afrezza we can finally control the disease. And, Afrezza is the ONLY way to do it. Afrezza really is the magic bullet. Imagine the gain to humanity as this product is properly rolled out. Therefore, it is critical to protect this product. We must see this succeed. We need to protect it from the incompetent and the venal. We need to guard it as the crown jewel that it is.
Profligate spending by MNKD doesn’t just hurt our stock price; it endangers Afrezza. Better to do nothing than spend wastefully. Everything I see in the Castagna strategy falls into the latter category. Sorry if that offends, but put aside the emotions and examine the situation objectively, and you’re likely to come to the same conclusion.
|
|
|
|
Post by lifebreath on Sept 12, 2019 19:42:19 GMT -5
I want to make a few comments about the Castagna rejoinder article posted by Spencer Osborn. I really don’t have the time to engage in an extensive back and forth with Mike, so I won’t be posting often. Mikes posts/comments are littered with inaccuracies, many of them intentional. He wants to discredit Vdex and me, and I understand that. We’ve been critical. It’s natural to be hostile one’s critics. Unfortunately, Mike is undermined by his own lack of success in promoting Afrezza. What Vdex has proven is that there is a strategy to make Afrezza the multi-billion-dollar annual drug that it should be. As I posted in another thread, we at Vdex will be sharing more information about that soon. Mike, for all his vaunted successes, hasn’t figured out how to do it. I honestly believe he doesn’t want to see Vdex/HFM succeed because of ego: he didn’t come up with the solution. That’s cynical, but it’s what I believe. But the most important thing people on this board or otherwise should know is that Afrezza really is, as Al Mann said, one the most significant pharmaceutical advancements ever. Let me give some detail here: diabetes is medicine’s great failure. There’s no truer way to say it. Medicine has failed to control this disease. Billions have been spent and billions more will be, but none of the pharmaceutical agents does the job. Even if one gets a patient’s HbA1c down to the ADA-recommended 7%, that’s still not doing the job. Microvascular damage is still occurring at that level. Amputations, blindness, dialysis, etc. are still in the picture. Afrezza changes all that. With Afrezza we can bring BG levels, in many cases, to normal: below 5.7%. With Afrezza we can finally control the disease. And, Afrezza is the ONLY way to do it. Afrezza really is the magic bullet. Imagine the gain to humanity as this product is properly rolled out. Therefore, it is critical to protect this product. We must see this succeed. We need to protect it from the incompetent and the venal. We need to guard it as the crown jewel that it is. Profligate spending by MNKD doesn’t just hurt our stock price; it endangers Afrezza. Better to do nothing than spend wastefully. Everything I see in the Castagna strategy falls into the latter category. Sorry if that offends, but put aside the emotions and examine the situation objectively, and you’re likely to come to the same conclusion. And that’s the way it is. Spot on information. Many board members here despise truth and reality, In favor of supporting Castagna’s ego. But what really matters is saving lives and making Afrezza available to as many diabetics as possible. Convinced his days as CEO are numbered |
|
|
|
Post by lakers on Sept 12, 2019 19:50:16 GMT -5
Bill, So far no one has figured out a way to successfully commercialized Afrezza yet despite billions dollars spent on dev, sales, marketing, COGS, SG&A over more than a decade. I’ll give you that. Imagine that money is spent on multiple candidates. Al chose the hardest drug possible in a very crowded field against powerful cartel, PBM, insurance.
Now that Mnkd no longer has a deep pocket backer, It is currently trying more shots on goal by progressing the pipeline.
|
|
|
|
Post by lifebreath on Sept 12, 2019 20:13:24 GMT -5
Bill, So far no one has figured out a way to successfully commercialized Afrezza yet despite billions dollars spent on dev, sales, marketing, COGS, SG&A over more than a decade. I’ll give you that. Imagine that money is spent on multiple candidates. Al chose the hardest drug possible in a very crowded field against powerful cartel, PBM, insurance. Now that Mnkd no longer has a deep pocket backer, It is currently trying more shots on goal by progressing the pipeline. One one side of the Coin, Bill believes teaching patients how to use Afrezza and then be available for refinement of method is the best way. On the other side you have Castagna who believes tv commercials costing millions of dollars aired on Fox News is the best way to grow Afrezza. |
|
|
|
Post by sellhighdrinklow on Sept 12, 2019 20:30:12 GMT -5
Bill, So far no one has figured out a way to successfully commercialized Afrezza yet despite billions dollars spent on dev, sales, marketing, COGS, SG&A over more than a decade. I’ll give you that. Imagine that money is spent on multiple candidates. Al chose the hardest drug possible in a very crowded field against powerful cartel, PBM, insurance. Now that Mnkd no longer has a deep pocket backer, It is currently trying more shots on goal by progressing the pipeline. One one side of the Coin, Bill believes teaching patients how to use Afrezza and then be available for refinement of method is the best way. On the other side you have Castagna who believes tv commercials costing millions of dollars aired on Fox News is the best way to grow Afrezza. Not sure what your point is. Advertising makes the consumer aware of the product. Without the advertising the consumer has no idea the product exists. In fact without the advertising of Afrezza , how many customers does VDex have? Castagna isn't going anywhere. The CEO of VDex on the other hand might be ..jmho |
|
