The Afrezza-branded inhaled insulin from Mannkind (Valencia, CA) will be introduced in the United States in 2015 after Sanofi entered into an agreement with the company, offering up to $925 million for the rights to sell the product worldwide. The deal would give Sanofi the exclusive marketing rights to sell the inhalable fast-acting insulin device internationally. The product could hit the market in six months based on the firms’ projections.
Afrezza hopes that its inhalable insulin product will be a gamechanger for diabetics. (Image courtesy Afrezza).
MannKind will get an initial payment of $150 million and will ultimately get more money based on hitting milestones that could be worth as much as $775 million. Under the deal, MannKind will get 35% while Sanofi will take the remainder.
While MannKind will make Afrezza in a facility in Danbury, CT, Sanofi plans to help boost the manufacturing operations of the product to meet global demand.
Afrezza is not the first inhalable insulin to hit the market. Exubera, a product developed by Pfizer that debuted in 2006 was yanked from the market a year later owing to sluggish sales of the product. The product’s failure was said to cost the firm nearly $3 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Mannkind received FDA clearance for Afrezza in April of this year after an advisory committe voted 13 to 1 to approve it for type 1 diabetics and 14 to 0 for type 2 diabetics.
The path to market, however, was anything but quick. Starting eight years ago, Mannkind is the brainchild of medtech billionaire Al Mann who sunk $1 billion of his own cash into the company.
In a 2007 interview with The New York Times, Mann said, “I believe this is one of the most valuable products in history in the drug industry, and I’m willing to back it up with my estate.”
Mann, who has spent decades heading up medtech firms, is now an executive at retinal prostheses firm Second Sight, electrostimulation specialist Bioness, and battery producer Quallion.
He was the recipient of the inaugural MDEA Lifetime Achievement award.
