What happened
Shares of MannKind (NASDAQ: MNKD) rose as much as 16% in early morning trading on Monday before settling down. As of 3:45 p.m. EST, the stock was up just 2%.
So what
The brief spike can be credited to CEO Michael Castagna, who gave a presentation today at the Noble Capital Markets meeting in Florida discussing the company's recent highlights and opportunities ahead.
The presentation was light on new information, but we did learn that an Investigational New Drug (IND) application for its pulmonary hypertension product candidate was submitted today. That's good news, but it's hard to get excited since the product is at least two years away from hitting the market in a best-case scenario.
Given the stock's recent uptick in volatility, it isn't surprising to see that shareholders had to experience yet another roller-coaster ride today.
Image source: MannKind Corporation.
Now what
Mannkind's short interest remains very high, so the stock is likely to trade erratically for the foreseeable future. That's why investors need to remain heads-down focused on Afrezza's sales volume and do their best to ignore the day-to-day market gyrations.
We recently learned that script volume is trending in the right direction, but, unfortunately, it's still nowhere near high enough for the company to eke out a profit.
Will management's recent actions and Afrezza's label change spur significant sales volume growth in 2018? That remains to be seen. However, I think that investors' time and capital are better spent elsewhere until we see the company prove that Afrezza is building traction.
