Atea Pharmaceuticals Announces Strategic Collaboration with Roche to Develop and Distribute AT-527 for Patients with COVID-19 Roche Obtains Exclusive Right to Develop and Distribute AT-527 Outside the United States

Excerpt from the Press Release:

BOSTON, Oct. 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Atea Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing antiviral therapeutics to improve the lives of patients suffering from life-threatening viral infections, today announces that the company has entered into an agreement with Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) for the exclusive rights to research, develop and distribute AT-527 as an oral antiviral treatment for COVID-19 in territories outside of the United States. Under the terms of the agreement, Atea will receive an upfront payment of $350 million in cash from Roche with the potential for future milestone payments and royalties.

“Roche shares our passion for delivering innovative new medicines to address great unmet medical needs. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the urgent need for a novel, oral antiviral to treat this highly infectious and often deadly virus,” said Jean-Pierre Sommadossi, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Atea Pharmaceuticals. “This collaboration with Roche enhances Atea’s efforts and underscores the potential for AT-527 to effectively address the COVID-19 crisis on a global scale. AT-527 is expected to be ideally suited to combat COVID-19 as it inhibits viral replication by interfering with viral RNA polymerase, a key component in the replication machinery of RNA viruses. Importantly, the manufacturing process for our small molecule direct-acting antiviral allows us to produce AT-527 quickly and at scale.”

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