What if the cure for a deadly disease is already sitting on a pharmacy shelf—but no one knows it?

In this episode, I sat down with Dr. David Fajgenbaum, a former D1 college football player turned physician-scientist who is transforming the way we treat disease. You’ll hear how David went from chasing touchdowns to chasing cures—first for his mom, who died of brain cancer, and then for himself, after nearly dying from a rare disease that had no known treatment.

David shares how he used his own blood samples, data, and sheer will to find a drug that saved his life—one that was originally made for organ transplant patients. That breakthrough led to Every Cure, a nonprofit using AI to match existing FDA-approved drugs with diseases they weren’t originally designed to treat. Thousands of lives have already been saved.

If you’re passionate about impact, driven by purpose, or looking for inspiration to overcome the impossible, this one’s for you.

In this episode:

• (0:00) Effort > Results? Why hard work still matters
• (1:00) Growing up football-obsessed in Raleigh, NC
• (5:18) The dream: D1 quarterback—until everything changed
• (6:42) A family tragedy leads to a life mission
• (9:50) Creating a national nonprofit from a dorm room
• (14:57) Studying cancer at Oxford, starting med school at Penn
• (17:36) Sudden illness, misdiagnosis, and a fight for his life
• (21:39) "We’re out of options"—so he became the researcher
• (24:24) Building a new model for rare disease research
• (26:51) The drug that saved him—originally meant for something else
• (27:39) Scaling his approach to help thousands
• (30:48) Launching Every Cure: AI meets drug repurposing
• (33:37) Why pharma doesn’t pursue most cures—and how David is fixing it
• (36:42) What’s next: scaling impact across the globe
• (38:09) David’s advice for anyone chasing excellence

HawkeMedia

• https://www.linkedin.com/company/hawkemedia/
• https://www.instagram.com/hawkemedia/?hl=en
• https://hawkemedia.com/
• https://twitter.com/hawkemedia
• https://www.facebook.com/hawkemedia/

About Our Guest

Dr. David Fajgenbaum is a physician, scientist, author, and social entrepreneur. As a med student, he nearly died from Castleman disease—a rare immune disorder—five times before identifying a repurposed drug that saved his life. Today, he's the co-founder of Every Cure, which uses AI and medical data to find new uses for FDA-approved drugs. His book Chasing My Cure chronicles that incredible journey.

• Every Cure – Website
• David Fajgenbaum – LinkedIn
• Chasing My Cure – Book

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.