Health and Healthcare

Mannkind Sinks on Afrezza License Termination

Chris Lange

Published: January 5, 2016 11:35 am

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 3:25 pm

MannKind Corp. (NASDAQ: MNKD) is one of the most traded biotech companies on the market, and one of the most shorted as well. In Tuesday’s session the stock took a big downturn after the company decided to terminate its insulin inhaler project with Sanofi-Aventis.

MannKind announced the termination of its license and collaboration agreement with Sanofi U.S. for the development and commercialization of Afrezza (insulin human) Inhalation Powder. Both parties promptly will commence transition discussions in order to effect a smooth and orderly transition in the development and commercialization of Afrezza from Sanofi to MannKind over the next 90 to 180 days.

In any event, termination of the license agreement in its entirety will be effective no later than six months from the effective date of Sanofi’s notice of termination, or July 4, 2016.

Over the course of the past 52 weeks MannKind, has vastly underperformed the market, with the stock down nearly 75%.

As of the most recent short interest settlement date, MannKind’s short interest totaled 111.52 million shares with 19 days to cover.

Tuesday morning, shares of MannKind fell to a new 52-week low of $0.96. The consensus analyst price target is $4.80, and the 52-week high is $7.88.