Relypsa Inc (RLYP): Orbimed Advisors Trims Its Exposure to the Company

As a new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission showed today, Samuel Isaly‘s Orbimed Advisors have trimmed its exposure to Relypsa Inc (NASDAQ:RLYP). The filing revealed that Orbimed has sold 94,000 shares in three open-market transactions at an average price of approximately $25.27 apiece. This raises the total value of the transactions to some $2.37 million. Following the sale of securities, Orbimed Advisors still owns around 8.86 million shares of Relypsa.

Relypsa Inc (NASDAQ:RLYP) is a $850 million biopharmaceutical company that is involved in development and sale of non-absorbed polymeric drugs designed for treatment of renal, cardiovascular and metablic diseases. The stock of the company remained basically flat since the beginning of the year, although it went through a significant surge during the first quarter, when it gained around 20%. The company has recently announced that it signed a multi-year agreement with Patheon, Inc. for commercial manufacturing and supply of its drug for the treatment of hyperkalemia called patiromer.

The company has also recently posted an update to its Phase 3 trial of patiromer. The results have been positive in patients with heart failure, showing a correction of hyperkalemia. The drug also showed a prevention of hyperkalemia recurrence in patients with heart-failure, as well as patients without heart failure.

Aside from Mr. Isaly, another investor bullish on Relypsa Inc (NASDAQ:RLYP) is Steven Cohen. His fund,  Point72 Asset Management, has initiated a stake in Relypsa during the second quarter of 2014, reporting ownership of 809,000 shares. In fact, Mr. Cohen’s previous fund, SAC Capital Advisors, was a shareholder of Relypsa Inc (NASDAQ:RLYP), and raised its stake by over 2,000% during the first quarter and held 198,800 shares at the end of March. Another hedge fund that owns shares of the company is Sectoral Asset Management, led by Jerome Pfund and Michael Sjostrom, which also added the company to its equity portfolio during the second quarter, reporting ownership of close to 713,000 shares in its latest 13F filing.