Inhaled Insulin and Diabetes Costs: An Interview With Pharma CEO Michael Castagna

Darshan: Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of DarshanTalks. We have a very special guest. We have, Mike is Tanya. Mike is, um, the CEO of mankind, uh, not, not, not humanity of mankind, the corporation. And, uh, he is, um, he's gonna be talking to us about some really interesting things because we had a little bit of a conversation right before we jumped on. And what we're going to talk about is how do you, how do you approach, um, the standard of care and how do you sort of approach engaging patients in a way that's meaningful Narrator: This is the DarshanTalks podcast, regulatory guy, irregular podcast with host Darshan Kulkarni. You can find the show on Twitter @DarshanTalks or the show's website at darshantalks.com. Darshan: We're using the term engaging rather broadly where we're thinking about cost. We're thinking about actually talking to patients, we're talking about, um, what role clinical research clinical plays in this process. So, so Mike, you wanna introduce yourself before I jump in, do many of these questions? Mike: Sure. Uh, thank you for having me today. I appreciate it. And that's been a busy week cause we get ready for holidays. But, uh, so my is Mike Astonia. I, uh, been at mankind almost four years now. It's been a turnaround company where the makers of inhaled insulin were the only inhaled insulin on the market. And the only one that'll be available for the next, probably 10, 20 years that we can see. Um, and my background is pharmacy. I've been at the pharmaceutical industry 23 years. I've done a lot of turnarounds, less, 15 years and worked for great places like Novartis and Bristol-Myers and Amgen. And I've had a fantastic career. I was actually a part-time pharmacist and pharmacy tech for 15 years. So for me, healthcare, I live, breathe, eat, and sleep. I love healthcare. I love what we do for changing people's lives. And a great thanks. Thank you. Looking forward to the dialogue today. Darshan: So, so let's let's and thank you for being on, um, let's, let's start talking first of all, with this concept of you will be the only inhaled insulin for as far as you can tell 15 to 20 years, inhaled insulin has sort of been, I remember going to pharmacy school around the same time you did actually. And, uh, full disclosure, Mike and I went to university of the sciences then called the Philadelphia college of pharmacy around the same time. Uh, I was 2002 and I think you were in 2001, is it right? Mike: Is that right? Darshan: So, um, I remember hearing about inhaled insulin then, and I remember it being the panacea. Um, and now what I'm hearing you say is as a turnaround company and you're hearing about how there's no one gonna cut, come on. What happened? Why is the panacea not, not as great as we all thought it would be? Or why is it as great and people aren't jumping on so Mike: Well, when you, when you used to get inhalants and you would get this box called Exubera. Okay. And so when you think about where we were back in mid two thousands, right? This, this was the first thing that everyone was so excited about, which is even more amazing. You look at it 20 years later, 15 years later, this thing was a bomb. That was your inhaled insulin. Oh, wow. Okay. Right. And so Al man, our founder was, it was a very successful businessman. He built the insulin pumps. And at that time, you know, he, you know, he looked at this thing saying, well, God, if that's what Pfizer spending 3 billion on, I can make that better. And that's what Al Mann spent. Our founders spent a billion dollars of his own money to build mankind. And he wound up taking the product from what I just showed you to the small little inhaler. Mike: And you know, this is a Fresno, it's the only inhaled insulin,