MNKD

Mannkind Corporation

A California biopharmaceutical company that makes Afrezza, an inhaled insulin for people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Instead of a needle, patients breathe a dry-powder insulin through a small inhaler, with the powder absorbed quickly through the lungs to manage mealtime blood sugar. Founder Alfred E. Mann, a serial inventor of medical devices, named the firm after himself and shaped it in the early 2000s by merging several of his companies. A fun quirk: Mann's dream was to free people with diabetes from daily injections — a needle-free ambition baked into the company's very name.