All,
It was interesting to see the results of the survey conducted with 75 primary care physicians in Steve Byrne’s (BofA) MNKD research report of 3/27/13. Of particular interest were the points about low familiarity with Afrezza (only 6/75 knew of it) and inherent bias against inhaled insulin due to Exubera’s market failure (ranked as highest concern for prescribing Afrezza). This is quite troubling and in my view highlights a dominant hurdle facing commercial success of Afrezza.
There is an older but very relevant research report on the failure of Exubera:
It is more comprehensive than other Exubera reports I have seen and I encourage anyone interested to read it. It contains a lot of insight on what went wrong and provides some lessons to be taken away from this massive commercial failure. The lingering negativity around inhaled insulin makes me more concerned about execution on the commercial front with respect to changing this perception and learning from PFE’s missteps, rather than any questions regarding Afrezza’s clinical significance or likelihood for approval.
