Chasing Cures

Our Vision

Our goal is to cure Castleman disease (CD) by 2025 and to expand our innovative approach to help cure all rare diseases by the end of this century. Just like CD, it won’t happen if we just hope. We have to turn our hope into action. Consider donating to the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network's life-saving research to accelerate progress and trailblaze a 3 step path for curing many more diseases.

Nearly

10%

Of People In America, And World Wide, Are Fighting A Rare Disease

1 In 2

Patients Fighting A Rare Disease Is A Child Under The Age Of 18

Of Those Children Fighting A Rare Disease,

3 Out Of 10

Won't Live To Their 5th Birthday

95%

of rare diseases do not have a single FDA approved treatment!

Many of the ~1,500 drugs already FDA approved for one condition may be treatments or cures for many of the ~7,000 diseases without any treatments

Sirolimus, which was originally developed for kidney transplantation, is treating my Castleman Disease and saving my life.

How many more of the 1500 already FDA approved drugs may be treatments of cures for the 7,000 without any?

Our Plan

Step One

Build and grow a multi-stakeholder community to crowdsource the highest impact research and mobilize samples and funding to make them happen. The Castleman Disease Collaborative Network (CDCN) is partnering with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to create the tools needed to facilitate this.

Step Two

Utilize data from studies in Step 1 to identify drugs that are already FDA approved for another disease that target whatever is found to be abnormal in the given rare disease - or to identify new targets for new drug development. Inspired by CDCN's work to do this for Castleman disease, Dr. Fajgenbaum co-founded Every Cure, a nonprofit organization to unlock the full potential of every approved medicine to treat every disease possible.

Step Three

Launch clinical trials to evaluate the effectiveness of the most promising drug repurposing opportunities from Step 2. Every Cure launches these trials and uses this information to ensure equitable access to this drugs for the new diseases that are uncovered.

David Fajgenbaum