Board of Directors will lead the nonprofit organization on its mission of unlocking hidden cures.

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA – September 7th, 2023 – Every Cure, a non-profit organization committed to unlocking the full potential of every drug to treat every disease it possibly can, is excited to announce its Board of Directors. These strategic appointments reflect Every Cure’s dedication to collaboration, innovation, and leadership in drug repurposing.

“I am thrilled to announce our incredible Board members for Every Cure just one year since we launched,” said Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Grant Mitchell, MD, MBA. “Their combined expertise in data science, drug development, healthcare policy, and patient advocacy is exactly what we need to guide our mission to deliver life-saving therapies to the patients who need them most.”

Every Cure is announcing the following eight members of its Board of Directors:

• Grant Mitchell, MD, MBA – Dr. Mitchell is Co-Founder and CEO of Every Cure. He brings a rich background as an entrepreneur and investor, marked by successful launches of health technology companies and impactful CEO roles in the life science and tech sectors. Previously, Dr. Mitchell was a Principal in Analytics at McKinsey & Company’s machine learning division, QuantumBlack, where he led teams that pioneered machine learning applications in real world evidence and synthetic trials. Dr. Mitchell’s experience and leadership empowers Every Cure to harness artificial intelligence to revolutionize the drug repurposing ecosystem.
• David Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, MSc – Dr. Fajgenbaum is Co-Founder and President of Every Cure and a physician-scientist at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the national bestselling author of ‘Chasing My Cure: A Doctor’s Race to Turn Hope Into Action‘. He is also a patient battling a deadly disease called idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease (iMCD), which he discovered a treatment for that is saving his life and others. He has identified and advanced 15 other treatment approaches for iMCD, COVID, and cancer. Dr. David Fajgenbaum’s unique blend of physician-scientist expertise, firsthand patient experience, and success in drug repurposing will enrich Every Cure with groundbreaking insights and an unyielding passion to transform patient outcomes.
• Tracey Sikora – Ms. Sikora is Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Every Cure. She has previously conducted pre-clinical and clinical research in rare diseases, including MPS I, Niemann-Pick Type C, Familial Hypercholesterolemia, and Castleman disease. Her research portfolio includes both novel treatments, including AAV gene therapies, and repurposed treatments. Prior to joining Every Cure, Ms. Sikora managed the CORONA Project at the University of Pennsylvania, investigating systematic evaluation of clinical trial data for Covid-19 treatments. In her current role, she leads mission-driven organizational operations.
• Bob Battista – As the Co-Founder of Doctor Evidence and a leader in software development and health tech, Mr. Battista has been instrumental in developing cutting-edge research and analytics tools. Mr. Battista served as a partner in the first specialty pharmacy, TheraCom, and also played a pivotal role in facilitating prominent pharmaceutical companies to secure drug patents. His contributions were rooted in his innovative approaches to repurposing existing compounds and devising novel methods for target identification. Mr. Battista’s extensive industry experience and relationships will be a valuable asset to build and deploy tech tools to identify and advance lifesaving therapies for the patients who need them most.
• Tanisha Carino, PhD – Tanisha Carino is a corporate affairs and health policy expert, bringing over 20 years of experience across multiple healthcare leadership positions in government, private, and non-profit sectors. Dr. Carino is a Partner with the Brunswick Group, associate faculty at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, a Visiting Fellow for the Duke-Margolis Health Policy Center, serves on the Board of Directors of Silk Road Medical, One Mind, and is the Chair of the Board for the Alliance for Health Policy. Previously, she held executive roles as the first Chief Corporate Affairs Officer of Alexion and Executive Director of FasterCures/Milken Institute.  Carino has been dedicated to building, researching and identifying policies and practices to create and effective repurposing ecosystem that meets the needs of patients.
• Freda Lewis-Hall, MD – Freda Lewis-Hall, MD, DFAPA, MFPM has been on the frontlines of healthcare for more than 40 years as a clinician, researcher, and leader in the biopharmaceuticals and life sciences industries. Most recently, Dr. Lewis-Hall served more than ten years on the executive leadership team as executive vice president and chief medical officer, and later chief patient officer at Pfizer. Dr. Lewis-Hall has been a champion for patients having served on the inaugural Board of Governors for the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) and as the Chair of the Cures Acceleration Network Review Board, of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Lewis-Hall continues her commitment to health, science, and advocacy by serving on the Boards of the Foundation of the National Institutes of Health, The Milken Institute’s FasterCures, the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative and the Focused Ultrasound Foundation. Her leadership in patient-focused research and development and deep understanding of the life sciences industry will provide critical insight to our Board of Directors.
• Secretary Bob McDonald – As a distinguished leader in both the corporate and public sectors, Secretary Bob McDonald has a legacy marked by transformative leadership and a passion for improving the lives of countless individuals. He is the former Chairman, President, and CEO of Procter & Gamble and served on President Obama’s cabinet as the eighth United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA). During his time at the VA, he implemented crucial reforms to address systemic challenges and improve healthcare services for U.S. veterans. Secretary McDonald brings a wealth of leadership and governance experience to the board that will provide Every Cure with strategic direction and ensure that we disrupt healthcare.
• Tania Simoncelli, MS -Tania Simoncelli is Vice President of Science in Society at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, where she is leading a major effort to harness science, technology, and the expertise and motivation of patient communities to accelerate progress against rare diseases. She held previous roles at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and American Civil Liberties Union. Ms. Simoncelli’s expertise in science policy, patient advocacy and biomedical research will help Every Cure to achieve its vision of working hand-in-hand with patients to unlock life-saving therapies.

The formation of this distinguished Board of Directors underscores Every Cure’s unyielding dedication to its mission of unlocking the therapeutic potential of every existing medicine to treat every disease it possibly can. With a collective wealth of knowledge and experience across various sectors, including healthcare, policy, technology, and patient advocacy, the Board will provide strategic direction and oversight as Every Cure continues to pioneer novel approaches to drug repurposing. Together, they are poised to drive innovation, foster collaboration, and make a lasting impact on the lives of patients around the world. For more information on Every Cure’s initiatives and to learn how you can contribute, visit EveryCure.org.

For further information or to express interest in partnering with Every Cure, please contact Brent Shaw ([email protected]).

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About Every Cure

Every Cure is a nonprofit organization dedicated to unlocking the full potential of every existing medicine to treat every disease possible. Repurposing existing drugs is the fastest and most efficient way to treat diseases with the greatest return on investment for saving lives. However, systemic barriers impede repurposing, so patients suffer while potential treatments are not fully utilized. Every Cure overcomes these barriers to systematically identify and advance promising repurposing opportunities and save lives. Every Cure is taking a revolutionary and disruptive approach to overcome these systemic barriers by developing a comprehensive, open-source data engine to generate predictive efficacy scores for all 3,000 drugs against all 12,000 diseases and rapidly advance treatments to patients. In partnership with academia, industry, and government, Every Cure is integrating proprietary and public data into a comprehensive dataset, optimizing AI ranking algorithms, validating the most promising drug-disease matches, performing trials, and ensuring patient access to effective therapies. Every Cure announced its launch in September 2022 at the Clinton Global Initiative.

For more information, please visit EveryCure.org or connect with us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.