Atea Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Provides Update on Strategic Collaboration with Roche
November 16, 2021 at 09:30 pm
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Atea Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced that the strategic collaboration pursuant to which it was jointly developing AT-527 for the treatment of COVID-19 with Roche will be terminating. Upon termination, the rights and licenses granted by Atea to Roche under the strategic collaboration will be returned to Atea, and Atea will have full rights to continue the clinical development and future commercialization of AT-527 worldwide. The strategic collaboration with Roche, which included joint development, will be terminated on February 10, 2022. As of September 30, 2021, Atea reported cash and cash equivalents of $839.7 million with a cash runway through 2023. Derived from Atea?s nucleos(t)ide prodrug platform, AT-527 is an oral direct-acting antiviral which is being studied to determine its potential to protect against disease progression and the development of long-COVID complications. Its unique mechanism of action, with dual targets including chain termination and NiRAN inhibition, has the potential to create a high barrier to resistance with broad antiviral coverage to different variants of SARS-CoV-2. Atea has completed a comprehensive nonclinical program to characterize the safety profile of AT-527. Results observed from these nonclinical studies demonstrated that AT-527 was non-mutagenic, had no effects on fertility or reproduction and was non-teratogenic. Atea is evaluating AT-527 across multiple clinical trials that are advancing in parallel, including the global Phase 3 MORNINGSKY trial.
Atea Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. The Company is focused on discovering, developing, and commercializing antiviral therapeutics to improve the lives of patients suffering from serious viral infections. The Company is engaged in is conducting a Phase 3 clinical trial evaluating bemnifosbuvir for the treatment of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). It is also conducting a Phase 2 clinical trial evaluating the combination of bemnifosbuvir and ruzasvir for the treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV). The bemnifosbuvir (AT-527), is an investigational, novel, orally administered guanosine nucleotide analog polymerase inhibitor that combines a unique nucleotide scaffold with novel double prodrugs for the intended purpose of inhibiting the enzymes central to viral replication. SUNRISE-3 is designed to evaluate bemnifosbuvir as monotherapy, but it is also exploring the effect of combination therapy in a smaller sub-set of patients.