Phar­mas­set co-founder jumps in­to Covid-19 fight, with a new com­pa­ny and $215 mil­lion to get there

For 7 years, Atea Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals hummed along, an­oth­er biotech in a city full of them, fil­ing patents, qui­et­ly pick­ing up a few small fund­ing rounds for mol­e­cules tar­get­ing he­pati­tis, Dengue and RSV — some of the few in­fec­tious dis­eases that could still gen­er­ate in­vestor in­ter­est.

Then Covid-19 struck and now they’ve raised $215 mil­lion in a sin­gle round from over a dozen in­vestors, in­clud­ing Bain Cap­i­tal and RA Cap­i­tal. They’ll use it to launch a cross-coun­try Phase II tri­al test­ing their lead drug, AT-527, as the lat­est new an­tivi­ral to go up against the coro­n­avirus.

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