CBO Peter Marschel to Lead HubXchange Roundtable on Computational Peptide Design
CSO Dr. Barbara Hibner and CTO Dr. Michael Lipp to Co-Present at Peptide-Based Therapeutics Summit; Advisor Dr. Bradley Pentelute to Deliver Opening Remarks
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., April 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Decoy Therapeutics Inc. (Nasdaq: DCOY), a preclinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering Designable Multi-Antivirals (D-MAVs ™), a new category of antivirals engineered to target shared viral mechanisms using its proprietary peptide conjugate platform, IMP3ACT™, today announced that members of its executive leadership will present across two leading peptide therapeutics conferences in Boston the week of April 27, 2026.
At the Oligonucleotide & Peptides HubXchange on April 30, Chief Business Officer Peter Marschel will lead a 60-minute roundtable discussion titled "Key challenges in computational design of peptide therapeutics: From natural ligand reengineering to de novo design." The session will examine how generative design approaches have the potential to move peptide discovery beyond the traditional evolutionary sampling that shaped therapeutics such as GLP-1 agonists, toward de novo design of peptide drugs against novel targets.
The company recently announced a strategic partnership with Quantori to deploy a Google Cloud-native, AI-driven peptide design and molecular simulation platform, shortening the cycle from peptide design to D-MAV candidates. The collaboration demonstrates how computational work can accelerate the shift from ligand reengineering to de novo design, which Marschel will discuss at HubXchange.
"The most interesting work in peptide therapeutics right now is how quickly we can potentially move, from optimizing naturally occurring ligands to designing ligands. At Decoy, we're especially interested in taking what mother nature gave us in powerful, cross-reactive natural ligands and combining them with modern computational techniques to design drug candidates with activity profiles that haven't been accessible through traditional approaches. We're excited to share what we're seeing and how D-MAVs fit into this throughout the week," said Peter Marschel, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer of Decoy Therapeutics.
On April 28, at the 3rd Annual Peptide-Based Therapeutics Summit, Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Barbara Hibner and Chief Technology Officer Dr. Michael Lipp will co-present the Spotlight Case Study "Design & Development of Peptide Conjugate Antiviral Therapeutics" during the Peptide Drug Conjugates pre-conference workshop. Their session will show how peptide conjugates enable design-led development of therapeutics built around medical need, moving past the constraints of conventional one-virus, one-drug approaches. The presentation will include new preclinical data from Decoy's D-MAV programs.
"We've spent decades treating viruses one at a time, but peptide conjugates give us something different: a way to design around what viruses share, not just react to what each one does," said Dr. Barbara Hibner, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Decoy Therapeutics. "There are hundreds of viruses affecting people around the world and only a handful of targeted treatments. This is a chance to change how we build them, driven by medical need, not by the limits of traditional drug development."
Also at the Peptide-Based Therapeutics Summit, Decoy Technology Advisor Dr. Bradley Pentelute, Professor of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will deliver the opening presentation of Day 1 on April 29, "The Infinite Loop: Machine Learning for Discovery, Delivery & Rapid Manufacturing of Potential Medicines."
The presentations come as Decoy advances its D-MAV pipeline, led by a preclinical pan-coronavirus fusion inhibitor and a discovery-stage broad antiviral targeting the "tripledemic" of influenza, COVID-19, and RSV. Both programs are built on the IMP3ACT platform, which integrates AI-enabled peptide design with rapid synthesis and manufacturing to support iteration across viral families.
About Decoy Therapeutics, Inc.
Decoy Therapeutics is a preclinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering Designable Multi-Antivirals (D-MAVs), a new category of antivirals engineered to target shared viral mechanisms. D-MAVs are built on Decoy's proprietary peptide conjugate platform, IMP3ACT, which integrates AI-enabled design with rapid synthesis and manufacturing. Decoy's lead programs focus on respiratory viruses. The company has attracted financing from institutional investors and significant non-dilutive capital from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Seed Fund, the Google AI startup program, and the NVIDIA Inception program, among other sources. The company has also received QuickFire Challenge award funding provided by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) through BLUE KNIGHT™, a collaboration between Johnson & Johnson Innovation and BARDA within the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 regarding Decoy, including expected achievement of milestones for its lead asset and future prospects of Decoy. These statements may discuss goals, intentions and expectations as to future plans, trends, events, results of operations or financial condition, or otherwise, based on current beliefs of the management of Decoy, as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to, management. Forward-looking statements generally include statements that are predictive in nature and depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, and include words such as "may," "will," "can," "should," "would," "expect," "anticipate," "plan," "likely," "believe," "estimate," "project," "intend," and other similar expressions. Statements that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on current beliefs and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties and are not guarantees of future performance. Actual results could differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement as a result of various factors, including, without limitation: the risk that the Company will not obtain sufficient financing to execute on their business plans and risks related to Decoy's products and development plans, including unanticipated issues with any IND application process and the potential of the IMP3ACT platform. Readers are urged to carefully review and consider the various disclosures made by the Company in its reports filed with the SEC, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025, as revised or supplemented by its Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other documents filed with the SEC. If one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or if the underlying assumptions prove incorrect, Decoy's actual results may vary materially from those expected or projected.
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