UPDATE: JP Morgan Upgrades MannKind to Neutral on Capitalization, Data Catalysts

JP Morgan raised its rating on MannKind

from Underweight to Neutral as the company appears to have sufficient capital to complete ongoing pipeline trials. JP Morgan noted, "MNKD's quarterly report was essentially a nonevent. However, we are incrementally more confident that the company's recent (and highly dilutive) offering should enable funding of the Phase 3 AFFINITY trials through data in mid 2013. We feel relatively comfortable with Afrezza's clinical outlook based on decent (some would say mixed) past Ph3 data. Longer term, we believe a partner will be needed to launch the drug, and while a deal could meaningfully de-risk the stock, we are skeptical that one will be secured prior to the Ph3 data (and potentially not even after). Thus our commercial concerns remain." MannKind closed at $1.93 on Thursday.