A Spirted Debate
Diabetic Investor isn’t normally a big fan of Twitter that was until we tweeted something negative about Afrezza. This morning we tweeted “After #Sanofi pulls the plug on #afrezza will the #mannkind zealots admit defeat”. Much to our amazement this simple tweet has ignited a spirited debate between Diabetic Investor and MannKind (NASDAQ:MNKD) zealots. And yes we are just loving it.
Honestly we cannot believe the lengths these people will go to in support of Afrezza. Yes it seems these zealots are not thrilled with our analysis and have provided laundry list of reasons why we are flat out wrong. Here is just a few examples:
Afrezza will do better once the direct to consumer ad campaign begins. Perhaps but an ad campaign won’t help with the drugs poor formulary position. Even with an ad campaign physicians will still have to perform pulmonary function tests which just ads to the cost and is another reason physicians are not prescribing the drug.
There is nothing wrong with the launch it’s going great, unrealistic expectations is what’s killing MannKind’s stock. Please is the best these people can do blame poor share performance on unrealistic expectations? Aren’t these the same people who have consistently stated that Afrezza is a sure fire blockbuster.
People who have used Afrezza love it. No argument here we have never claimed that Afrezza is a bad drug or that there is not a subset of patients who will use the drug. What we have said from day one is Afrezza is nothing more than a niche product. We never, ever claimed that patients wouldn’t use it.
Tell us who your sources are. This is one of our favorites. First off we did not state that we had a source. What we tweeted was a very well informed opinion. Second, we never reveal our sources and for good reason as if we did we wouldn’t have any sources.
Diabetic Investor is just a newsletter and anyone can write a blog. As we noted many times any idiot can write a blog. As we have also said just as frequently we’re happy to stack our track record against any MannKind zealot. While our good buddy Serge and our new best friend Pierre might believe this is personal, it’s not. We write what we believe and if that offends some people so be it. Listen if these people want a friend they should get a dog.
We find it interesting and somewhat amusing that these people continue to ignore what everyone else sees. How they rationalize the reasons why analysts continue to lower sales estimates or blame everything on short sellers. How they ignore or explain away MannKind’s financial issues. Yet best of all what shows their true ignorance is their belief that Sanofi can do what they never done, have a successful diabetes product that’s not called Lantus.
Still we must admit we do enjoy this spirited debate, rarely have we seen such passion. The reality here is that no one, not Diabetic Investor nor any of the MannKind supporters knows exactly what will happen. As with most things in this wacky world time will tell and we’ll see who’s right and who’s not. Until then keep the debate going as it sure is fun.
