What happened Shares of Atea Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AVIR) fell by as much as 14.4% in premarket trading Wednesday morning. The biotech's shares are sliding today in response to Roche's (OTC: RHHBY) decision to terminate its involvement in the development of the oral COVID-19 therapy known as AT-527. Atea Pharmaceuticals will reportedly regain full commercial rights to the drug on Feb. 10, 2022. Despite Roche's exit, the company said it still plans on moving forward with AT-527's ongoing phase 3 Morningsky trial. Image source: Getty Images. So what Almost one month ago today, Atea and Roche announced that AT-527 failed to outperform placebo in a mid-stage trial focused on patients with mild or moderate cases of COVID-19. Since then, Merck and Pfizer have both applied for Emergency Use Authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for their competing oral COVID-19 therapies. As a result, Roche probably didn't want to stick around for a drug that would have to compete in a crowded marketplace. Merck and Pfizer's oral therapies, after all, will likely have most of this market all sewn up by the time AT-527 posts phase 3 results in the second half of 2022. Now what Is Atea Pharmaceuticals stock a buy on this dip? While AT-527 could hit the mark in Morningsky next year, the drug will probably have to go through a normal review process to gain market access in the United States. That means that AT-527 might not be commercially available until mid-2023. Atea Pharmaceuticals also doesn't have any other late-stage candidates in development right now. Therefore, investors might want to watch this story unfold from the safety of the sidelines for the time being. 10 stocks we like better than Atea Pharmaceuticals, Inc.When our award-winning analyst team has a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.* They just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now... and Atea Pharmaceuticals, Inc. wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of November 10, 2021 George Budwell has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Atea Pharmaceuticals, Inc. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.Source