Every Cure: turning old drugs into new hope
October 22, 2025Dr. David Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, MSc and his nonprofit, Every Cure, are using AI and biomedical data to identify life-saving opportunities to repurpose existing drugs, helping patients who have no current treatment options.
“We've proven it works, and we’re already helping patients,” says Dr. David Fajgenbaum on expanding the fight against rare diseases with repurposed drugs and AI.
Eighteen months ago, we spoke with Dr. David Fajgenbaum about his nonprofit, Every Cure, which was inspired by his own battle with a nearly fatal rare disease. David nearly died five times from idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease (iMCD) before he discovered his own treatment by repurposing an old drug.
Reusing existing drugs to treat conditions they were not originally designed for is common. For example, Viagra was first used to treat cardiac angina before being repurposed for erectile dysfunction, and now it also serves as a life-saving treatment for a rare pediatric lung disease. This is just one example among many.
At Every Cure, David and his team are dedicated to saving and enhancing lives through drug repurposing. They use AI to predict the highest potential repurposing opportunities by looking across all 4,000 approved drugs and 18,000 recognized diseases for the 300 million people worldwide suffering from diseases that currently lack treatment. We decided to catch up with David to discuss how this process is accelerating.