COVID-19 - Atea Pharmaceuticals

What is COVID-19?

COVID-19 is an acute respiratory illness borne from infection with SARS-CoV-2 – a positive single-stranded RNA virus. The SARS-CoV-2 virus shares structural similarities to SARS and MERS, which cause acute severe respiratory infections. The incubation period for the development of clinical COVID-19 symptoms from the time of initial SARS-CoV-2 viral infection is highly variable, ranging from 2 to 14 days.

There remains a need for new oral antiviral treatments.

Relapse, drug-drug interactions, potential safety and efficacy concerns, and potential resistance are key drivers in the need for additional treatments
COVID-19 variants will continue to emerge, and the virus will continue to evolve
Variants fuel surges of cases and can be life-threatening to those at high risk
BA.4 and BA.5 are expected to cause a major surge in the United States in the Fall or Winter of 2022

The next steps in our global response to COVID-19.

A doctor in a protective mask is checking the temperature of a patient via an infrared thermometer.

What can we expect?

While vaccines will play an important role in mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic, we will need treatment options to stay ahead of the virus, and direct-acting antivirals will be an essential complement to vaccines.

COVID-19 vaccination reduces severity and several therapies have been approved or are currently being investigated to treat COVID-19 infection. Even with the approval of vaccines, we anticipate that antivirals will continue to be essential because of the uncertainties around the level of immunity that vaccines will be able to generate and the durability of such immunity.