MannKind Corp. (MNKD)

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FWIW TREND1





But Alfred Mann's motivations went far deeper than money.

The Los Angeles billionaire already could claim a stunning array of medical advances: His companies had created a rechargeable pacemaker; an implant that enables deaf people to hear; a prosthetic retina that helps blind people see; an insulin pump that transformed the treatment of diabetes; a device that enables amputees to control prosthetic fingers with their brains.

It was 2011, and Mann had his sights on inhaled insulin — a breakthrough that could spare millions of diabetics the pain of billions of daily pinpricks.

I'm trying to help people. How else would I have been able to work until I'm almost 90, if I didn't have something to motivate me?
- Alfred Mann
Mann ordered his executives to cancel all the company's other projects, make painful job cuts and focus on the future of the drug, Afrezza.

The effort paid off. In June, the FDA blessed the drug, which led French pharmaceutical company Sanofi to pay MannKind Corp. $925 million for marketing rights, plus 35% of profits.

The deal could generate billions of dollars for MannKind. But for its chief executive — an 88-year-old physicist, inventor and entrepreneur who has launched 17 companies in five decades — it marks the capstone of a singular crusade.

"I know what motivates him," said Keith Markey, a Griffin Securities analyst who covers MannKind. "He'd like to do as much as he can for humanity.