Common Sense for the Biochemist

MannKind announced today that it had raised $175 million in a private placement of their stock. Of this, $87.5 million came from MannKind's CEO Alfred Mann with the rest coming from institutional investors. That seems like quite a chunk of cash to be coming from a private placement. Although I really don't know much about this company, I would say that this type of investor confidence is a good sign. MannKind currently trades on the NASDAQ National Market, symbol MNKD. MannKind's current leading product in development is an inhalable form of insulin, which is in Phase II clinical trials. What really struck me about this company is that in their latest quarterly reports, Selling General and Administration costs were only ~$4 million while R&D costs were $18 million. These guys are really beefing up the R&D while keeping the admin on bread and water. I know I am probably a little biased but I really like to see the majority of money being spent on product development and not on lawyer's and business developer's salaries. From the little research I have done on Alfred Mann (okay, so there are probably more than a few of you that are scoffing right now and saying "I can't believe you don't know who Alfred Mann is!"), he seems to be really good at starting companies based around solid technology and then selling them off. Looking at his humanitarian efforts, I would say he has sold these companies off at quite a profit.