Inhaled drug developer MannKind Corporation has announced that it “is committed to joining the global effort to overcome the COVID-19 crisis” and as a result “that it is adjusting research and development resources that were reserved for its pipeline of investigational products for treating serious lung diseases, with the goal of prioritizing work on new compounds that may have the potential to address the morbidity and mortality associated with respiratory viral infections, such as COVID-19.”
The new R&D focus will involve a collaboration with Immix Biopharma on a dry powder formulation for the potential treatment of acute respiratory distress syndrome; according to the company, “The immediate focus of this effort is to rapidly develop prototype powders, which will then be assessed for their potential to be used therapeutically.”
MannKind’s Afrezza inhaled insulin was approved by the FDA in 2014, and the company is partnered with United Therapeutics on development of an inhaled dry powder treprostinil for the treatment of PAH based on MannKind’s Technosphere technology. In July 2019, the company announced that it had added high potency manufacturing capacity at its Connecticut facility.
Read the MannKind Corporation press release.
