health
Every Cure’s Drug Repurposing Strategy Isn't What You Think, and It Could Change Rare Disease Treatment
When David Fajgenbaum and his colleagues launched the drug repurposing non-profit Every Cure, they chose a path that challenged the traditional research model.
TL;DR
- Rare diseases affect over 10,000 conditions, with 95% lacking a cure, and developing new treatments is costly and time-consuming.
- Drug repurposing utilizes existing drugs for new disease treatments, offering an alternative to expensive novel drug development.
- Every Cure uses AI to efficiently identify potential drug-disease matches, aiming to find the most viable existing treatments.
- The organization's disease-agnostic approach contrasts with traditional philanthropy, which often focuses on specific diseases.
- Every Cure has secured significant funding from entities like the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, TED's Audacious Project, and ARPA-H.
- AI has drastically reduced the time needed to screen drugs against diseases, from 100 days to 17 hours.
- The non-profit manages the entire process from discovery to clinical trials, aiming to get treatments to patients.
- Drug repurposing is seen as a complementary strategy to novel drug development, not a replacement.
- Challenges include convincing pharmaceutical companies to manufacture older, less profitable generic drugs for new uses.
- Every Cure navigates the FDA approval process as an independent non-profit, sometimes educating regulators on their unique model.