Atea Pharmaceuticals Inc. has been quietly developing a pipeline of oral direct-acting antiviral drugs against hepatitis C and other RNA viruses since 2014, but now the company has emerged from stealth mode with a $215m series D venture capital round and a lead development program designed to prevent moderate COVID-19 patients from turning into severe cases requiring mechanical ventilation.
Finance Watch: Atea Pharmaceuticals Raises $215m For COVID-19 Antiviral
Private Company Edition: Atea and Phlow receive big money for big COVID-19 problems – treatments and manufacturing capacity. Also, Cowen raises a $493m fund and antifungal developer Amplyx increases series C round to $90m, among other recent VC deals.

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Public Company Edition: Stock valuations are falling due to political, economic and regulatory uncertainty, resulting in fewer large public offerings, more alternative financings and cost cuts. Carisma, Tenaya, BioAtla, Arbutus, Nkarta, Alector and Adaptimmune announced layoffs.
CEO Kris Elverum told Scrip about the start-up’s platform for editing RNA to correct genetic variants that cause harm and to reproduce healthy variants as a means of treating disease.
The four-year-old firm said it plans to advance programs toward the clinic from the funding round, which comes just over a year after signing two major pharma partnerships.
Private Company Edition: The latest group of drug developers to announce venture capital financings is remarkable for its geographic diversity, from Character Biosciences’ $93m series B round in the US to Augustine’s $85m series B in Belgium to a $29.2m series C for Aculys in Japan.