Relypsa Up 10% Following Encouraging Phase 1 Study Results

Shares of Relypsa Inc (NASDAQ: RLYP), a biopharmaceutical company that focuses on non-absorbed polymeric drugs to tread disorders in the areas of renal, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, were trading higher by more than 10 percent early Tuesday morning.

Relypsa announced after Monday's close encouraging results from 12 Phase 1 studies in healthy volunteers evaluating potential drug-drug interactions between Veltassa (patiromer) for oral suspension and 12 drugs that had previously demonstrated binding in in vitro tests.

Relypsa stated that when Veltassa was administered at the same time as the drugs being tested, there was no clinically meaningful reduction in absorption for nine of the 12 drugs. Three drugs showed reduced absorption when they were co-administered with Veltassa.

The company added that of the three drugs, when dosing of Veltassa was separated by three hours, there was no reduction in absorption observed.

"The results from these studies are encouraging as, of the 12 drugs that had previously shown in vitro binding to Veltassa, nine showed no clinically meaningful reduction in absorption when co-administered with Veltassa in people," said Lance Berman, M.D., chief medical officer of Relypsa. "In addition, when dosing was separated by three hours, there was no impact to absorption of the three drugs that had demonstrated reduced absorption when they were given with Veltassa. We look forward to discussing these data with the FDA and determining next steps."

Shares traded recently at $21.60, up 10 percent in the pre-market session.