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Post by mnholdem on Feb 29, 2020 11:41:17 GMT -5
Interesting that MC and others went ahead and exercised sizeable options at $4.55 in addition to those exercised at more current valuations. I don’t believe they were exercised, they became vested. Typical footnote reads:
1. On May 19, 2016, the reporting person was granted an option that vests upon the achievement of certain defined performance milestones. On February 25, 2020, one of the defined performance milestones was met, resulting in the partial vesting of the option. Reporting persons were granted options which give them right to buy common shares at a specific price after the options are vested. When the reporting persons eventually choose to exercise their Options, then another Form 4 will be filed with the SEC, although I'm not 100% certain because granting and even exercising Incentive Stock Options are not considered a taxable event until stocks are sold. The advantage of an Incentive Stock Option is that you do not have to report income when you receive an option or when you exercise that option. The employee pays no tax on exercise and the company gets no deduction. Instead, if the employee holds the shares for two years after exercise, the employee only pays capital gains tax on the difference between the exercise and sale price, which is typically a lot lower than your regular income tax rate. |
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Post by mnholdem on Feb 28, 2020 9:58:12 GMT -5
One comment from CEO Castagna did bother me. When asked about payer coverage, he stated that ~80% of commercial payers cover Afrezza but then, when asked about possible future plans to improve payer coverage, Castagna's response included the remark "we're okay with the P.A." (Reminder: PA = prior authorization and approval is required for patient to be covered for Afrezza). This indicates one of two obstacles to unrestricted coverage are still being faced: - Payers give preferred status to other brands of rapid-acting insulin that compete against Afrezza, or;
- Payers consider insulin to be dangerous and therefore require ALL brands of rapid-acting insulin to be burdened with the PA requirement.
Slide 6 illustrates that one of the MannKind's 2020 Strategies to "Focus on Placing Key Bets to Drive Wider Afrezza Adoption" is the creation of a Specialty Pharmacy Network that is hoped will provide:
- Reimbursement support
- Pharmacy fulfillment support
- Patient persistency tactics (e.g. texts, emails, phone calls)
This is troublesome to me as MannKind apparently has capitulated and has decided a good option is to basically put the burden of dealing with the payer onto the patient. Reading through all the hype, what this CEO seems to be implying here is that patient is likely to be denied coverage and the physician doesn't have time or won't make the time to become a patient advocate with payers. It seems that the CEO believes that it will be beneficial to teach the patients communication tactics to use against the payer. Does Castagna really think that the majority of patients are going to suddenly become assertive when denied coverage for Afrezza by their plan managers? IMO, only a fraction of the patients will be persistent. The same applies for physicians. The 2020 Strategy relies heavily on organic growth rather than tactics associated with disrupting the diabetes market. IMO, if this is the strategy, then stockholders can expect slow adoption of Afrezza to continue. 
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Post by mnholdem on Feb 27, 2020 17:10:27 GMT -5
Can we please stay on topic??? Yeh, this thread has all the characteristics of a fret-less bass player...pretty much all over the place. |
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Post by mnholdem on Feb 27, 2020 17:04:49 GMT -5
I think he may have posted it on the TechnoVax thread.
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Post by mnholdem on Feb 27, 2020 13:23:51 GMT -5
You would think that Technovax would post on link on their website.
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Post by mnholdem on Feb 27, 2020 13:08:04 GMT -5
If you go to their Publications page, you'll see that their last publication was in 2013. The website has a 2020 copyright but it appears to have been left pretty much unaltered for 5-7 years.
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Post by mnholdem on Feb 27, 2020 9:45:36 GMT -5
I'll go back and listen later today, I'm 99% sure he said that. It's in the Q&A session: Steven Michael Lichtman, Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., Research Division - MD and Senior Analyst - "Mike, can you talk a little bit more about how you're evaluating the pediatric opportunity, as you mentioned? Just curious on your areas of focus and the milestones ahead on that."
Michael E. Castagna, MannKind Corporation - CEO & Director - So on the pediatric, I mean we were very excited to get alignment with FDA directionally on finalization of the part 1 of the 2 parts for approval. Part 1 was just confirming that our PK results meet the criteria for the FDA for the 8- to 17-year olds. And then the second part of that alignment with FDA was that we're going to forgo a 4- to 7-year-old label indication, and they've aligned directionally to those 2 requests...
- The next part is getting the Phase III study protocol approved. That will happen over the next 3 to 6 months. And then in that time frame, we'll be meeting with many of the thought leaders...
- And then the final is just the whole market assessment needs, and we really believe that -- my personal bias is that the way you change the standard of care for the next 100 years is really through pediatrics and type 1 and getting these patients started in early age, getting them to get great outcomes, proper dosing will grow up on the product, they'll transition to adult endos, there's teenagers into college, some more kids growing up, they may never have to experience an injectable mealtime insulin or a pump for that matter. So we think that's the big opportunity, to start to lay out that foundation, and we'll confirm that through our market assessments that we're doing or we're conducting as we speak. ...looking to hire a dedicated marketer to lead that up as well as a PH Endocrinologist. So we're really going to start to focus our efforts to make sure we do a great job in the pediatric segment. And we think it's a big opportunity, but we'll confirm that through additional research.
I have no idea what a "PH" Endocrinologist is but that could simply been an erroneously-reported transcript. |
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Post by mnholdem on Feb 27, 2020 5:49:49 GMT -5
Sweedie: yea sorry. Might have been thinking novo Nordisk Indy Car driver Charlie Kimball. David Kendall What a great hire who has done nothing other than hob nob with the top 10 writers in the country. It’s like going into friendly territory and telling them their kids are beautiful. So sorry to hear that, everybody’s been wondering what he’s been doing..that must’ve been crushing. What about United is questionable? And did Pat quit because of lack of sales? What is it about the physicians/clinics that makes the Top 10 Afrezza writers so successful? MannKind's Chief Medical Officer SHOULD be paying attention to these endocrinologists. They may possess some of the answers needed to win greater adoption for Afrezza. Frankly, if he isn't already, Dr. Kendall should also make the time to "hob nob" with Vdex doctors. Frankly, pguererro's commentary about what Dr Kendall's activities consist of is simply not credible, although I would like to see a larger, more visible role for the CMO.  |
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Post by mnholdem on Feb 26, 2020 12:42:57 GMT -5
Way to dig, dog! |
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Post by mnholdem on Feb 25, 2020 16:04:15 GMT -5
Much like UT is replacing Tyvaso with Tyvaso (TS) I’d approach GSK with a deal for Imitrex(TS). Their #1 migraine drug is at its patent cliff.
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Post by mnholdem on Feb 25, 2020 16:00:06 GMT -5
Mike said they’ll table this unless they get a partner. I’d take it through Phase 1-2 trials to entice partners. An ultra-fasting migraine drug would address an unmet need.
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Post by mnholdem on Feb 25, 2020 10:07:31 GMT -5
Well, for what it's worth, CEO Castagna did state that they have received another Brazil order. Of course, it won't hit the books as revenue until they've shipped. The first shipments was ~$700k as I recall. Will the next order be the same or bigger? We probably won't be told until the 1Q20 earnings call and it might not matter a lot, since Castagna did say the company is in decent shape with cash flow. |
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Post by mnholdem on Feb 23, 2020 18:23:30 GMT -5
As I said earlier, price reduction is only one step in a multi-pronged approach, portions of which I have recommended to previous CEOs. I will be finalizing a business strategy for presentation to the BoD. In the event they include me in their 2020 proxy material and they do not impose a NDA requirement, I will be seeking the board’s permission to share it with stockholders. Like all retail stockholders, I have no access yet to many details of the CEO’s current strategy.
I’m highly encouraged that we’ve begun marketing the company as a whole and, hopefully, CEO Castagna will be willing to reveal more at this week’s earnings conference.
What I’m seeing from the team is encouraging.
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Post by mnholdem on Feb 23, 2020 14:36:25 GMT -5
Mango - it would be great if you could dig up the video which was on Youtube where they honored Al at the ADA 2015 dinner. Are you thinking of the USC Lifetime Achievement award? Link: vimeo.com/127283854 |
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Post by mnholdem on Feb 22, 2020 22:44:45 GMT -5
Which brings us back to the origin of this thread. Price-fixing at the expense of people who need insulin in order to live. Sure, few stockholders would rant, but how many people with diabetes would hail the CEO as a hero? So, having redirected this thread back toward the RICO article, let me say that we all know that none of the executives of the Big 3 will ever serve prison time and that it's likely that any fines, no matter how large, would never approach the profits the giant companies have raked in from their dramatic increases of insulin prices. Nite! |
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