David Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, MSc, is co-Founder & President of Every Cure, and one of the youngest faculty members to ever receive tenure at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. A physician-scientist and patient battling Castleman disease, he discovered and repurposed a treatment that saved his own life and others—a story he shared in ‘Chasing My Cure’. Since launching the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network (CDCN) in 2012 and the Center for Cytokine Storm Treatment & Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania in 2015, Dr. Fajgenbaum has transformed the treatment and survival of patients with Castleman disease and related diseases, advancing 14 repurposed treatments for cancers and rare diseases. He co-founded Every Cure to unlock more hidden cures from existing medicines and is pioneering a novel approach called “computational pharmacophenomics” that utilizes AI to predict the most promising drug repurposing opportunities and validates them in clinical trials. Dr. Fajgenbaum also serves on the Board of Directors for the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA.
One of the youngest recipients of multiple top NIH and FDA grants, Dr. Fajgenbaum has authored over 100 scientific papers in leading journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Clinical Investigation, and The Lancet. He has been profiled by The New York Times, Good Morning America, TODAY, and Forbes 30 Under 30 and has received numerous honors, including the 2016 Atlas Award alongside then VP Joe Biden, 2022 NDRI Service to Science Award alongside Nobel Laureates Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman, 2023 Philadelphia Citizen of the Year Award, and selection to the 2025 TIME100 Health list of the world’s most influential people in health. Prior to founding the CDCN, CSTL, and Every Cure, Dr. Fajgenbaum co-founded National Students of AMF, a nonprofit college student grief support network that reached thousands of students, in memory of his mother. Dr. Fajgenbaum earned a BS from Georgetown University, MSc from the University of Oxford, MD from the University of Pennsylvania, and MBA from The Wharton School.