MannKind shares edged lower by as much as 2.23% to 85 cents per share during regular trading hours on Thursday after the company announced that the class-action lawsuit filed against it had been dismissed. The inhaled insulin maker and two of its executives had been named in the lawsuit, and the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California granted the request to dismiss the case without leave to amend.
Class-action case against MannKind closed
The case against MannKind is now closed, although the plaintiffs have 30 days to appeal the court’s decision. The insulin maker didn’t disclose any further information about the lawsuit, so it’s unclear which lawsuit the press release is referencing as more than one law firm has filed a class-action case against it in recent years.
The press release does specify that this is a securities case, of which there were at least two filed within the last eight months: one by Hagens Berman and another by Rosen Law Firm. The cases seem to relate to the termination of Sanofi’s marketing relationship with MannKind, the lack of success of the company’s inhaled insulin product, Afrezza, and the company’s stock price movements as they pertain to the events.
MannKind relaunches Afrezza
MannKind is still struggling to get Afrezza into the hands of diabetes patients who are tired of sticking themselves with needles repeatedly. The company recently relaunched its insulin product after getting the marketing rights back from Sanofi, but so far things have not been going well. We’re now six weeks into MannKind’s relaunch of the insulin product.
According to Seeking Alpha contributor Spencer Osborne, the latest week of prescription numbers for Afrezza was another difficult one. On Monday, he reported that total scripts declined 7.6% to 255, although new scripts gained 15.4% to about 135. However, there was a 24.5% decline in refills, meaning that the patients who are trying Afrezza aren’t refilling their prescriptions, although Osborne suggests that the big decline might be due to longer-lasting titration packs, which mean patients don’t have to refill as quickly as they did previously.
