MannKind Corp. yesterday completed a reverse stock split that brought its share price above the one-dollar minimum required to trade on the Nasdaq stock market.
A 1-for-5 reverse stock split took affect after the market closed Thursday. That reduced the number of shares outstanding by a factor of five, thus increasing the value of each share.
So a shareholder who owned 100 shares of MannKind worth $0.52 each on Thursday owned 20 shares yesterday worth $2.60 each yesterday morning. The stock closed at $2.12 a share yesterday, down 12.78 percent.
Until the reverse split, the Valencia’s biopharmaceutical company’s stock had traded below Nasdaq’s minimum $1.00 per share threshold since August.
In September, Nasdaq gave the company six months’ notice that it would delisted unless its stock closed above $1 per share for 10 consecutive trading days by March 13.
The company makes Afrezza, an inhalable form of insulin. MannKind and French drugmaker Sanofi launched a joint marketing agreement in August 2014 that held the prospect of Afrezza emerging as a blockbuster drug.
But sales lagged and the two companies dissolved their partnership after only seventeen months.
The company recently hired its own sales force and is negotiating contracts with health insurers to expand access to Afrezza.
