Atea Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to ATEA Pharmaceuticals' fourth quarter 2024 Financial Results and Business Update conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the formal remarks, we will open the call up for your questions. I would now like to hand the call over to Janaya Barnes, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications at ATEA Pharmaceuticals. Ms. Barnes, please proceed.

Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Atea Pharmaceutical's fourth quarter and full year 2024 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 going to the investor section of our website at ir.ateafarma.com. With me today from Atea are our Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Dr. John Pierce Amadosi, Chief Development Officer, Dr. Janet Hammond, John Bavrica, our Chief Commercial Officer, Dr. Arantxa Horga, our Chief Medical Officer, and Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President of Legal, Andrea Corcoran. They will all be available for the Q&A portion of today's call. Before we begin the call, and as outlined on slide two, 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.

Thank you, Joné. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I will begin on slide three. We made significant progress last year advancing our HCV program who is a regimen of Benifazovir and Rizazvir. In December, we reported positive results from our global phase two trial, which demonstrated a 98% cure rate in the primary efficacy analysis with a short eight-week treatment. The very high SVR rate demonstrated robust potency across HCV genotypes. We believe our regimen, if approved, has the opportunity to become a best-in-class hepatitis C treatment and disrupt the global HCV market of approximately $3 billion in annual net sales. The very positive Phase II results help to support a successful end of Phase II meeting with the FDA, which occurred this past January. In addition to the substantial clinical progress, business updates include recent steps we have taken to further enhance shareholder value. This includes the retention of Evercore, a global investment bank, to assist us in the exploration of strategic partnership related to our Phase III HCV program. We also took cost-cutting actions to enhance efficiency in the management of infrastructure expenditures, which Andrea will discuss in further details. In February, we announced the appointment of a new independent director, Arthur Kirsch, who brings decades of financial and strategic advisory experience to our board of directors. Moving to slide four, based upon the encouraging results today, together with the successful outcome of the FDA meeting, we are initiating the global phase three program, evaluating the regimen of Benifazovir and Rizosvir, and expect enrollment to begin next month. We believe that our phase three program is the risk with a compelling value proposition. Furthermore, robust Phase II results for antiviral therapies have historically led to a high probability of success in Phase III studies. In addition, we will be showing today results from a multi-scale modeling approach that confirm the high likelihood of success of our Phase III programs. With $454.7 million of cash, cash equivalent and marketable securities for December 31st, 2024, we are in a strong financial position to execute and complete our Phase III HCV program as we anticipate our cash runway will extend into 2028. Moving to slide five. HCVs continue to be a significant global healthcare issue despite the availability of direct acting antiviral for the past decade. The unrelenting high rate of HCV infections, which is outpacing the stagnant number of patients being treated, underscore the need for a new, differentiated, and optimized therapy. I would like to point out but we still have a very large number of untreated HCV patients of between 2.4 to 4 million in the United States. And let's not forget that in the United States, 70% of liver cancer is a consequence of HCV disease progression. Therefore, the lack of treatment of these HCV patients has a profound impact not only on patients' life, but also with the associated healthcare hospitalization costs. On slide six, the large burden of untreated HCV disease translate into a large and tab commercial opportunity. Currently in the United States, out of the 160,000 new infections every year, only approximately 100,000 patients are treated. Last year, for example, these U.S. treated patients resulted in approximately $1.5 billion net sales, and globally the market continued to approximate $3 billion. We believe that the best-in-class profile of our regiment, together with the anticipated removal of access barrier and future government initiatives, can dramatically expand the number of patients cured in the United States from this severe viral disease. With that, I will now turn the call over to Janet to review the profile of our regimen and the global phase three program. Janet?