Unlocking the hidden potential of existing drugs to save lives
Summary
In 2022, Every Cure committed to launching efforts to unlock all diseases that all existing drugs can treat by developing a comprehensive, open-source database of drug repurposing opportunities, and launching clinical trials of the most promising treatments.
Approach
Every Cure is dedicated to unlocking all diseases that all existing drugs can treat by developing a comprehensive, open-source database of drug repurposing opportunities, and launching clinical trials of the most promising treatments. Specifically, Every Cure will obtain, integrate, and analyze multiple data sources (e.g. PubMed, public data repositories, clinicaltrials.gov, medical record data, pathway and drug databases) , utilize natural language processing, and apply a machine learning algorithm modeled after its COVID-19 algorithm to identify the most promising drug repurposing opportunities. Every Cure will integrate insights from disease experts and pharmaceutical companies to further refine its assessment of the most promising repurposing opportunities and partner with disease research organizations to perform clinical trials of these opportunities. This approach has previously identified drug repurposing opportunities for Castleman disease, COVID-19, and angiosarcoma, and an initial pilot uncovered 106 promising drug repurposing opportunities in a first-set of 147 diseases. Now, Every Cure is scaling this work to all known diseases and drugs.
This project overcomes systemic challenges that have impeded the identification of all potential uses for all drugs by aggregating data and aligning stakeholders and financial incentives. The non-profit organizational structure will ensure that generic drugs with no commercial incentive for repurposing will be pursued by Every Cure in promising new indications. Their team will contribute expertise in drug discovery and repurposing, patient-driven research, informatic analyses, and clinical trial execution. Every Cure will establish collaborative partnerships with leading philanthropic organizations, medical informatics firms, tech companies, and biopharmaceutical companies, among others to obtain funding, data, data science tools, and actionable insights.
Action Plan
Every Cure will establish an open-source database of all potential drug repurposing opportunities and apply a machine learning algorithm to systematically evaluate and identify the most promising opportunities to move forward into clinical trials. Our action plan includes the following steps:
December 2022:
Complete initial version of the open-source database
March 2023:
Establish a preliminary list of the 100 most promising drug repurposing opportunities across all diseases for further investigation
June 2023:
Complete build of a comprehensive version of the database and make all promising drug repurposing opportunities available through an open-source platform
September 2023:
Select the top 15 repurposing opportunities for further clinical studies by Every Cure and/or in partnership with external organizations
December 2023:
Finalize partnerships to perform further clinical studies for the most promising drug repurposing opportunity within 6 months
March 2024:
Select sites for initial clinical trial of the most promising drug repurposing opportunity
June 2024:
Launch clinical trial of the most promising drug repurposing opportunity
September 2024:
Refine and update the list of the top 15 repurposing opportunities for further clinical studies
December 2024:
Secure funding and finalize partnerships to perform further clinical studies for the next 7 most promising drug repurposing opportunities ($1-5M per drug-disease pair) March 2025:
Launch clinical trials of the next 7 most promising drug repurposing opportunities (pending identifying funding beyond this CTA) June 2025:
Establish a refined list of the top 100 remaining repurposing opportunities
September 2025:
Launch clinical trials of the next 7 most promising drug repurposing opportunities (pending identifying funding beyond this CTA)
Background
Patients around the world die every day from diseases that could have been cured by a drug sitting on the shelf at their local pharmacy. Unfortunately, no one knows to try these drugs because no systematic efforts have been made to unlock the full potential of their use across diseases. Though many diseases share common mechanisms and can benefit from the same drugs, the ~3,000 FDA-approved treatments are only approved for ~3,000 human diseases and another ~9,000 diseases affecting millions of people do not have any approved treatments. The current model requires $1-2B and 10-15 years to develop a single new FDA-approved drug. Repurposing safe, widely available drugs for new indications is faster and less expensive, with the greatest return on investment for saving lives.
Repurposing drugs has proven effective for Castleman disease (CD) and other conditions. Every Cure co-founder Dr. David Fajgenbaum nearly died five times from CD before discovering that the inexpensive transplant drug sirolimus was also effective for CD. This discovery has saved countless patients’ lives, including Dr. Fajgenbaum’s and inspired the creation of Every Cure. Dr. Fajgenbaum’s team has identified 9 other CD treatments as well as treatments for cancer and COVID-19, including guiding the selection of drugs for the groundbreaking ACTIV-6 clinical trial. Incredibly, dexamethasone and tocilizumab, which were rapidly repurposed as treatments for COVID-19, have likely saved the most lives during this pandemic.
Unfortunately, insufficient incentives, siloed data, misaligned stakeholders, and other market failures have impeded the identification of all potential uses for all drugs, especially low-cost, generic drugs. The incomplete utilization of existing drugs and focus on new, expensive drugs has a disproportionately negative impact on individuals in areas with reduced access to medicines.
Society needs a systematic effort to identify the most promising drug repurposing opportunities and bring them to patients, which would save precious lives and enormous costs.
Progress Update
Every Cure is currently scoring and ranking all drugs and diseases to find the most promising repurposing opportunities. The organization has secured foundational funding for operational infrastructure as well as project-specific federal funding. Fortunately, this funding has enabled the expansion of planned activities from the original selection of 7 opportunities to 25 opportunities. This expansion has also lengthened the timeline to allow for more thorough development and evaluation of the AI platform. The commitment will therefore continue beyond September 2025.
Partnership Opportunities
Every Cure is seeking $15.8 million USD to initiate buildout of the open-source database by the end of 2022 and launch the first clinical trial of the most promising drug repurposing opportunity within 18 months. Separate from this Commitment to Action, Every Cure is seeking an additional $45M to perform clinical trials of the next 15 most promising drug repurposing opportunities ($1-5M per drug-disease) . Every Cure is also seeking access to proprietary medical data and data analytic tools (e.g. medical record data, network data on published studies, and drug/disease database data) , partnerships with disease research organizations and biopharmaceutical companies to evaluate potential repurposing opportunities and/or collaborate on clinical trials, data resources such as cloud computing, and legal services, marketing fees, and office space to lower costs so that funding can be focused on treatment discovery and saving lives., Every Cure is offering the below resources and/or services as part of partnering. Every Cure is offering disease research organizations the opportunity to utilize insights and potentially receive financial resources for collaborative clinical trials. Partners providing access to proprietary medical data and analytic tools will be highlighted publicly for their contributions and given preferential access to insights. Biopharmaceutical companies contributing medical data and insights will be profiled publicly and engaged to generate meaningful insights. Anchor fundraising partners will be highlighted in all materials and media engagements.