(RTTNews) - Decoy Therapeutics, Inc. (DCOY), a preclinical biopharmaceutical company, announced on Tuesday that the development of its peptide-conjugate antiviral platform has reached a Global Access Commitment Agreement (GACA) with the Gates Foundation to support making countermeasures for emerging pathogens, reachable to people in low- and middle-income countries.
Following the announcement, DCOY shares are surging 48% to $1.23.
Peptide conjugates are a new class of drug, perhaps best known for the popular diabetes and weight loss medications, where peptides are chemically linked to another molecule to combine their strengths and make targeted, more effective, or safer treatments.
Decoy is creating a transferable manufacturing capability for peptide-conjugate antiviral fusion inhibitors designed on its IMPACT platform that can advance therapeutic products from laboratory to commercial scale.
Decoy is working with a leading contract manufacturing organisation based in the U.S. and Europe to establish the manufacturing capability, and Decoy's intranasal pan-coronavirus fusion inhibitor will be used for validation.
Decoy's proprietary IMPACT peptide-conjugate drug design and manufacturing platform leverages machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) tools.
IMPACT may enable rapid computational design and manufacturing of innovative peptide-conjugate therapeutics, including response to viral pathogens such as H5N1 avian flu. Decoy's initial pipeline is focused on respiratory viruses and GI cancers. Barbara Hibner, Decoy's Chief Scientific Officer, stated that the new capability will establish a distributed network of manufacturing facilities capable of responding rapidly to viral outbreaks worldwide.
In addition, Decoy expects to advance its lead asset, a pan-coronavirus antiviral, to the filing of an Investigational New Drug (IND) application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in next twelve months.
Decoy's technology has also produced in vitro peptide conjugates against multiple human coronaviruses, including all SARS-CoV-2 major variants of concern to date, and against RSV A, RSV B and hPIV3, and in vivo against the SARS-CoV-2 delta variant.
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