OK. So now there's a lot of talk about Molnupiravir's mutagenic concerns. We all knew this was coming and it's something that Merck/Ridgeback are going to have to work through, and don't candy coat it, it's a negative for Molnupiravir. So, Atea gets a bump in price today.
Unfortunately, Atea likely has some rough patches ahead also. Dr. Hammond, who's in charge of Atea's clinical trials, has been whining for months during the conference calls about the difficulties Atea has been having with patient recruitment into the clinical trials. My opinion, and only my opinion, of what she has been complaining about, is that it is difficult to recruit a clean control group. Evidently, because of standard of care restraints, the trial patients NOT on AT-527 are still receiving other Covid therapies. As far as a study goes, this contaminates the control group and makes it difficult to determine what exactly is and is not due to AT-527. If the control group, non AT-527, is receiving another effective therapeutic, then the control group will do better and make the intervention of giving AT-527 appear less efficacious. Again, and I want to stress this, the preceding comments are only my opinion about what Dr Hammond was saying.
Second issue for Atea is that Bain Capital sold a couple million shares last month, you can see the details in Sched 13D/A's that were filed last month. Bain did this in the run-up to the Merck press release about Molnupiravir. Bain reduced their holding to less than 5% of Atea.
So my suspicion is that even if AT-527 works, they're having trouble with their phase 3 trials and will not be able to imminently release results and request an EUA. I suspect that they may have to do additional studies. Also, I'm not sure that I envy the position that Dr Hammond may soon find herself in.
I'm still very long and very hopeful. But, just as Merck hit a speed bump today, I suspect that Atea has some bumps ahead and today seemed as good a day as any to voice my concerns. You need to air all of it, good and bad, so that the stock price rationally reflects the reality.$Atea Pharmaceuticals, Inc.(AVIR)$
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