Here's Our Take On MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ:MNKD)'s Current Situation

Regular readers will know we've been pretty favorable towards MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ:MNKD) over the last twelve months. Against a backdrop of strongly negative sentiment, and a declining PPS as symptomatic of this sentiment, we've maintained that the company can eventually reverse. Whatever anybody says about management (and a look at the message boards suggests views differ strongly) we believe that the team in place right now has actually done a decent job of scooping the company out of the gutter and lifting it to a point at which there is a chance it can succeed. Share price action hasn’t reflected what we see as a remarkable operational turnaround (early days, sure, but a turnaround nonetheless) and so our long term thesis is rooted in the potential for a realignment that closes the share price/operational divergence.How long it's going to take remains to be seen. However, a couple of developments have hit the wire over the past month or so that suggest the wheels are in motion, and that now might finally be a good time to pick up an exposure.Before we get into the details, a bit of history to help those new to this one catch up. It's a biotech play that developed a diabetes asset in conjunction with pharma giant Sanofi SA (ADR) (NYSE:SNY). It's an inhalable insulin product, and when the FDA approved it back in 2014, Sanofi was tasked with the commercialization stage of the process. The company failed miserably at this task, however, and at the beginning of 2016, it dropped the product and returned the rights to MannKind. MannKind basically collapsed after this, and most wrote it off. Since then, however, added scrutiny surrounding the Sanofi commercialization efforts have revealed that the shortcomings were rooted in the marketing efforts, and not the product itself.MannKind (as led for the most part by the current management team) have forged a reintroduction path that seeks to overcome these shortfalls, and is now pushing the product as part of said reintroduction.So that brings things up to date.The developments we're interested in are rooted in marketing and a recent filing relating to the current team and board.First then, marketing. The company is embarking on a strategy rooted in three things – social media, on-site direct to patient marketing (through iPads) and the sponsoring of a TV show aimed at diabetics. The first two are – in our eyes – nice, cheap ways to get into the sphere of awareness of diabetes patients. Not traditional, but cost effective, and that's what MannKind needs right now. The latter, the TV sponsorship, is not particularly cheap, but it could be a game changer from an awareness perspective. The show in question is called Reversed, and it's hosted and created by a guy called Charles Mattocks, who is the nephew of Bob Marley. Whether there's any value to MannKind in this family tie remains to be seen, but it's an interesting side note nonetheless.The recent filing is this 8-K, which has introduced a Change of Control Agreement to the company's corporate makeup. We won't go into it in too much detail, but it basically says that the executive team get to stay on site and in similar jobs in the event of a takeover, or if they are terminated, they get a payout that includes 18 months of pay, a bonus and some other benefits.There are two ways to look at this.One is from the viewpoint of this Seeking Alpha author, who sees the golden parachutes as an insult to shareholders and an undeserved addition to an about to fail company. Note: said author has published a few of these sorts of MannKind-bashing pieces in the past.Another is from the viewpoint of this Motley Fool author, who sees it as potentially pointing towards a near term takeover, and the provisions being put in place to ensure that the current team (which as stated above, have done a decent job of getting things moving operationally) remains in control under whoever takes control of the base.Right now, we're more inclined to fall in line with latter. Not that we think a takeover is on the cards very near term (there are certain provisions in structure that would make it difficult) but we're not writing it off either.We will be updating our subscribers as soon as we know more. For the latest updates on MNKD, sign up below!Disclosure: We have no position in any of the securities mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.