Hakan Edstrom, the president, CEO and director of MannKind Corp., a biotech company based in Danbury, said he will talk about two of the treatment areas chosen for the company’s next products in an earnings call Monday.
- Hakan Edstrom holds a device used to deliver Afrezza in his Danbury office. Photo by Danielle Brody
MannKind produces Afrezza, an inhalable insulin product for people with diabetes, which was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last year and went to market in February. The powdered insulin is delivered with the company”™s signature drug delivery technology, Technosphere.
In an interview this week, Edstrom said the company has put a lot of money into a market research project with a consultant that discussed Mannkind”™s technology with physicians, experts and researchers and looked at an inventory of unmet medical needs.
The company is in the process of reviewing where their technology could be beneficial, Edstrom said. The technology could potentially be used with drugs that are toxic to the liver, because Mannkind”™s system bypasses the organ; drugs used for pain, pulmonary-related diseases and central nervous system diseases; and for smoking cessation, he said.
“We”™re trying to build a portfolio of probably about four to six products that we will pursue,” Edstrom said. “Not all of them will be successful, but you”™ve got to start and then hope that you reach all the way through regulatory approval to the market.”
The Afrezza drug is delivered through a small, plastic whistle-like structure that opens to load single-use cartridges of insulin. Users inhale the insulin, which takes about 10 to 12 minutes to reach peak concentration in the blood stream, before meals.
The company recently announced it has added two more filling lines to its manufacturing facility in Danbury to produce 12-unit cartridges of insulin, which will be available in September. The drug is currently available in four- and eight-unit cartridges.
The drug is approved for patients 18 and older. Edstrom said the company has just agreed on protocol with the FDA for the pediatric population to use the drug. Patients 4 years old and older are now being recruited to start studies, he said.
The company, which is headquartered in Valencia, Calif., is also in the process of moving all operations to Danbury within the year. The Valencia office handles administrative tasks like financial reporting and intellectual property, Edstrom said. MannKind has two buildings encompassing approximately 360,000 square feet on Casper and Taylor streets in Danbury.
Look for a full story about MannKind in the Fairfield County Business Journal”™s Aug. 17 issue.
