The founder of insulin pump maker MiniMed, "bionic eye" company Second Sight Medical Products ($EYES) and inhaled insulin provider MannKind ($MNKD) has died at the age of 90. The cause of his death is not yet known. Alfred Mann founded 17 companies over his years, including some in the pharma and aerospace industries. He sold many of them, including MiniMed to Medtronic ($MDT) for $3.3 billion in 2011, and was worth more than $2 billion in 2007. His latest venture turned out to one of his few misses. Although Mann spent almost $1 billion of his own money to secure FDA approval of inhaled insulin med Afrezza, the combination product appears to be a flop (as many predicted), and former marketing partner Sanofi stopped supporting the therapy after a handful of months. Second Sight IPO'd in November 2014. Although its stock has fallen since the company's debut on the Nasdaq, it last year released promising data on its Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System for patients who are blind due to due to retinitis pigmentosa. More
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