D-MAVsTM
Introducing D-MAVs:
Designable Multi-Antivirals.
For as long as antiviral medicines have been made, they have been made to target one virus at a time. D-MAVs begin from a different question: What if a single medicine could be designed to stay ahead of many viruses at once, including ones the world has not met yet?
A Designable Multi-Antiviral is one drug engineered to act across many viruses by targeting the biology they share, rather than the features that set each one apart.
A new category, built on purpose
D-MAVs are a new category of antivirals, and Decoy is creating it. These are medicines that are designed, not discovered one virus at a time. Designable is the difference. It means Decoy is not limited to the antivirals nature happens to provide: the team can design a candidate toward the profile a disease calls for, then keep refining it as viruses evolve and the science advances.
What we mean when we say designable
Designable is the whole product, not just the molecule. For each program, Decoy designs three things together.
The molecule
A peptide engineered against the entry machinery many viruses share, so one drug can be designed to act across a whole set of them rather than one.
The manufacturability
Designed to be made on existing commercial peptide production machinery, at low cost and at scale, so they can be produced in the real world rather than only in theory. Decoy has developed proprietary technologies that streamline D-MAV manufacturing and greatly increase its speed and efficiency.
The delivery
Built to reach the virus wherever it does its damage, in the form the disease calls for. Decoy develops D-MAV candidates for delivery via nasal, pulmonary, and injectable routes, optimizing for the solubility, stability, and resistance to degradation each route demands.
Access follows from the same design.
Because a D-MAV is built to be made on existing commercial machinery, Decoy can license production to the world’s leading peptide manufacturer rather than hold capacity itself, so the people most exposed are not the last to be reached.
The shift D-MAVs represent
Traditional antiviral model
D-MAV model
One drug, one virus
One drug, many viruses, many patients
Reactive to known threats
Anticipatory by design
Decisions locked in early
Modular and adaptable
Starts over with every new virus
Builds on a shared platform, every time
Traditional antiviral model
One drug, one virus
Reactive to known threats
Decisions locked in early
Starts over with every new virus
D-MAV model
One drug, many viruses, many patients
Anticipatory by design
Modular and adaptable
Builds on a shared platform, every time
Why this changes what
protection can do
Because D-MAVs target what viruses have in common, such as the molecular machinery many of them use to enter human cells, a single drug can be engineered to protect against many of them at once. The implications build from there. One medicine could be taken to prevent infection, or after someone has already been exposed. If one person in a household falls ill, the whole family could be protected by the same drug. And as the team studies these shared mechanisms, it keeps finding links between viruses that look unrelated on the surface, which widens what a single D-MAV might one day reach.
What this unlocks
The cost of viral disease is more than lost days. It strains families, fills hospitals, and falls hardest on people far from advanced care, who the current model reaches last. A drug designed to work across many viruses, on a platform designed to scale, changes who protection can reach. Decoy is building toward a world where one adaptable medicine can protect many people against many viruses, wherever they are.
A medicine designed to work across many viruses, built on a platform designed to scale, changes who that protection can reach. It points at the hardest problems first: the threats that carry the greatest global burden, and the people who wait longest under the current model, from immunocompromised patients to communities far from advanced care. The aim is a world where one adaptable drug protects many people against many viruses, wherever they are.
