Atea Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:AVIR) held its first-quarter earnings conference call on Tuesday. Below is the complete transcript from the call.
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The full earnings call is available at https://viavid.webcasts.com/starthere.jsp?ei=1757740&tp_key=b853d5ec64
Summary
Atea Pharmaceuticals reported a strong financial position with $256 million in cash and equivalents, projecting a cash runway through 2027.
The company is progressing with its global Phase 3 HCV program, having completed enrollment in North America and nearing completion outside North America, with anticipated top-line data releases mid-year and year-end.
Atea Pharmaceuticals expanded its pipeline to include a new HEV program, planning to initiate a first-in-human study mid-year, targeting an unmet need in immunocompromised patients.
Phase 2 data suggests a potential best-in-class profile for its HCV regimen, with high efficacy and low risk of drug interactions, which could support a strong position in the $2.6 billion global HCV market.
Management emphasized strategic positioning for a commercial launch in the HCV market, leveraging a concentrated prescriber base and favorable payer dynamics.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Atea Pharmaceuticals’ first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If you should require operator assistance during the conference, please press Star 0 on your telephone keypad. I will now turn it over to the Atea management team. Please go ahead.
Jonae
Hi, thank you operator. Good afternoon everyone and welcome to Atea Pharmaceuticals First Quarter 2026 Financial Results and Business Update Conference Call. Earlier today we issued a press release which outlines the topics we plan to discuss. You can access the press release as well as the slides that we’ll be reviewing today by visiting the Investor section of our website at ir.ateapharma.com. With me today from ATEA are our Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Dr. Jean Pierre Samidosi, Chief Development Officer, Dr. Janet Hammond, Chief Commercial Officer John Vavrika, Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Arancha Horga and Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President of Legal, Andrea Corcoran, who will all be available for the Q and A portion of today’s call. Before we begin the call and as outlined on slide 2, I would like to remind you that today’s discussion will contain forward looking statements that involve risk and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties are outlined in today’s press release and in the Company’s recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which we encourage you to read. Our actual results may differ materially from what is discussed on today’s call. With that, I’ll now turn the call over to Jean Pierre.
Jean Pierre
Thank you Jonae. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us. I will begin on slide 3 with two pivotal phase 3 top line readouts for our global phase 3 HCV program. Ahead of us, 2026 will be catalyst year for Atea. We remain on track and are very encouraged by the substantial progress our team continues to achieve. We completed patient enrollment for CBeyond, our North American trial, late last year with over 880 patients who are representative of the genotypes and demographics in North America for C Forward, our EX North America trial. I’m pleased to share today that we have completed enrollment for 95% of the cirrhotic and non cirrhotic patients and anticipate to complete enrollment next month as scheduled. Currently, enrollment is only open to the less prevalent genotypes such as 4, 5 and 6, which will allow us to support a broad label. This set up two important Phase 3 Milestones we expect top line data from CBR in mid year as we have reported before and top line data from CForward around year end. Late last year we expanded our antiviral hepatitis pipeline to address a major unmet medical need for immunocompromised patients living with chronic hepatitis E infection, a liver disease for which there is currently no approved therapy. If left untreated in this at risk population, it can rapidly progress to cirrhosis within only three to five years. We have completed CTA enabling studies for AT587, our lead product candidate and we anticipate to initiate a first in human study mid year. Initial results were presented in February at Croi 2026 and additional data will be presented at EASIL later this month to support AT-587 as a potential first in class inhibitor against hepatitis E infection. I will review this exciting program and our clinical plan for a first in human study later in this presentation. Importantly, with 256 million in cash, cash equivalent and marketable securities as of March 31, 2026, we are in strong financial position to execute and complete our Phase 3 HCV program and advance our new HEV development program. We anticipate our cash Runway remaining through 2027. With that, I will now turn the call over to Janet to review the profile of our regimen.
Janet
Thanks Jean Pierre on slide 5 we are conducting the first active controlled phase 3 global program for hepatitis, comparing our regimen against the current standard of care, the sofosbuvir and velpatasvir, which is marketed as epclusa. The data generated to date for the regimen of bemifosbuvir and ruzasvir support a differentiated potentially best in class profile combining high efficacy, short treatment duration with a low risk for drug drug interactions, dosing convenience and no food effect. We continue to add to our data set and recent results demonstrate a low risk for drug drug interactions with proton pump inhibitors which are taken by estimated at least 35% of hepatitis C patients. We’ve also confirmed the absence of an interaction with HMG CoA Reductase inhibitors or statins, another important and commonly prescribed class of medications. In closing, I’m also pleased to share that we will be presenting additional results at EASL later this month that support the potential for a best in class profile for our regimen. I’m going to hand the call over now to Arantia to review our Phase three program for the treatment of hepatitis
Arantha
C. Arantha thank you Janet. Moving ahead to Slide 7. As a reminder, see beyond enrolled patients in the US and Canada and CForward is enrolling patients in 17 countries outside of North America. Combined, we expect to enroll more than 1,760 patients in our phase 3 program. Both trials are open label, randomized one to one against the active comparator and stratified by cirrhosis status and genotype including patients CO infected with HIV. In patients with cirrhosis, treatment duration is 8 weeks with beniphosphovirusvir and 12 weeks with the standard of care. Patients with compensated cirrhosis received 12 weeks of treatment with either regimen. The primary endpoint for both studies is sustained viral response or cure 24 weeks after treatment initiation. Slide 8 shows that the geographic footprint of our global Phase 3 program was comprised of approximately 120 clinical sites and in the US and Canada for C beyond and another 120 clinical sites in 17 countries outside of North America. For C Forward, we completed patient enrollment of our CBeyond trial in December with more than 880 patients and we anticipate top line results mid year. C Forward has a broader global geographic and genotypic footprint and we expect to complete enrollment mid year and to report top line results around year end. As JP mentioned earlier, we are pleased to share that for See Forward we have completed enrollment of 95% of the trial in cirrhotic and non cirrhotic patients. Enrollment is only open to the less frequent genotypes such as 4, 5 and 6, which will support a broad label. Enrollment of C Forward remains on track to be completed by mid year on slide 9. Let’s review the phase 3 endpoints. Patient population and data analysis for our global phase 3 program in Cbeyond, the primary endpoint will be analyzed in a modified Intent to Treat or mITT population as preferred by the US fda. The analysis will include patients that have been randomized and those regardless of drug adherence or loss to follow up. The statistical analysis will be based on an imputation model with success or failure depending on PCR value, whether negative or not prior to patient treatment discontinuation. A key secondary endpoint will be the SBR rate in the per protocol population. In C Forward, the per protocol population will be analyzed as the primary endpoint as preserved by the ema, and the SVR rate will only include patients who are at least 80% adherent as measured by pill count and have an SVR assessment at …
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