Roche wades deep­er in­to Covid-19 fight, ink­ing an­tivi­ral pact with $350M cash fol­low­ing Re­gen­eron deal

Roche is mak­ing its first bet on an an­tivi­ral against Covid-19 in style, shelling out $350 mil­lion in cash to grab ex-US rights.

The drug comes from Atea Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, the 7-year-old biotech cre­at­ed by Phar­mas­set co-founder Jean-Pierre Som­ma­dos­si, which es­sen­tial­ly re­brand­ed it­self as a Covid-19 fight­er in May when it closed a whop­ping $215 mil­lion ven­ture round. Over a dozen in­vestors bought in, in­clud­ing mar­quee names like Bain Cap­i­tal and RA Cap­i­tal.

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