MannKind Alters Credit Facility

MannKind Corp. announced Tuesday that it has changed the terms of its credit facility with MidCap Financial Trust.The Westlake Village biotech company entered a credit and security agreement with the Bethesda, Md. financier in August 2019 for a total of $75 million over two years. MannKind took the first $40 million that August. A second advance of $10 million would be available until April 15 of this year, and a final advance of $25 million was scheduled for delivery before June 30, 2021, depending on MannKind’s fulfillment of certain milestones.  Under this week’s amendments to the credit facility, the $10 million second advance, or “Tranche 2,” was delivered to Mannkind Dec 1. “Tranche 3” for $25 million no longer has a time limit – rather, it will become available when MannKind receives Food and Drug Administration approval for its “TreT” product. TreT is a dry powder formulation of the drug treprostinil, currently being tested to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension.“We appreciate the unwavering financial support and partnership from MidCap as we progress our three most important business objectives – growing Afrezza to become the standard of care for mealtime insulin, working with our collaboration partner, United Therapeutics, to move Treprostinil Technosphere (TreT) toward an NDA submission with the FDA, and developing our pipeline,” said Michael Castagna, chief executive of MannKind, in a statement. MannKind’s stock closed down 11 cents, or almost 4 percent, at $2.88 on the Nasdaq on Wednesday, a day when the overall Nasdaq declined 0.05 percent.