Finding new solutions in existing drugs
That tested drug in your local pharmacy may be someone’s new cure. Of the world’s approximately 18,500 recognized diseases, only about 4,000 have FDA-approved treatments, leaving hundreds of millions of people worldwide without effective therapies for their conditions. In many cases, drugs already exist that could be repurposed to treat these diseases but there is no research being done that could match existing drugs with the diseases that need cures.
Dr. David Fajgenbaum, Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, jumped at the chance to change this space, creating Every Cure, a nonprofit organization focused on unlocking the full potential of existing drugs to treat diseases beyond their originally approved uses. By leveraging AI, big data and collaborative research, Every Cure is focusing on identifying and repurposing FDA-approved medications for conditions outside their original targets, particularly rare and neglected diseases.
Dr. Fajgenbaum had good reason to tackle this challenge. While attending medical school, he was diagnosed with Castleman Disease, a rare condition that affects the lymph nodes and immune system, leading to abnormal overgrowth of lymphatic tissue. It is not a single disease but a group of disorders that share similar lymph node abnormalities. It lacked a treatment and Dr. Fajgenbaum came close to dying several times waiting for one.
Driven by the need to find a solution that could save his life, he launched his own research initiative and discovered an overactive pathway in his blood. As part of his research, Dr. Fajgenbaum used Standard BioTools’ SomaScan™ Platform as part of an effort to identify a blood protein signature that helped to point Fajgenbaum towards his treatment—a 25-year-old drug initially developed as an immunosuppressant for kidney transplant patients. He’s been in remission from his disease for more than a decade.
Standard BioTools is now partnering with Every Cure to be their sole analysis partner and proteomics technology provider, bringing the power of protein studies on 11,000 protein measurements from the SomaScan Platform as part of EveryCure’s work in finding potential cures for untreated disease. Standard BioTools will be taking samples from Every Cure’s research cohorts, analyzing the data in our labs and returning data that can be used with their AI-based modeling.
This year, Every Cure is looking forward to a roster of new projects to match drugs with untreated diseases with more than $110 million in committed funding, including a $48.3 million contract from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) for the development of its AI-powered platform called ML/AI-enabled Therapeutic Repurposing In eXtended uses (MATRIX). Proteomics data from the SomaScan Platform will be used to identify blood protein signatures that will be integrated in the MATRIX.
“It’s exciting to be part of Every Cure’s important mission to expand the therapeutic range of FDA-approved drugs. Proteomics is a powerful tool in identifying biomarkers for drug targets and the reliable and precise SomaScan Platform is playing a valuable role in this research.”
- Michael Egholm, PhD
President and Chief Executive Officer, Standard BioTools