Hope should not be passive: David Fajgenbaum on The BioCentury Show

How Fajgenbaum’s quest for a Castleman’s cure is changing medicine

As a medical student, David Fajgenbaum led a search for the first effective treatment for Castleman’s disease, a rare condition that was killing him.

Fajgenbaum succeeded, saving himself and other patients, transforming the immune disorder from a killer to a manageable disease. His journey started with compassionate use of an investigational drug, included marshaling scientists from around the world to learn the causes of his disease, and led to repurposing a 50-year-old drug that no one had previously considered using for Castleman’s.

Along the way, he developed a philosophy of that could help others who face steep odds. “Hope,” Fajgenbaum told The BioCentury Show, “should not be a passive concept. It’s a choice and a force.”

In the interview, Fajgenbaum, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania and co-founder and executive director of the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network, discussed how he is devoting his career to applying what he learned about patient-led drug development to tackling other rare diseases. And he previewed a new initiative that will look for opportunities to save lives by finding new uses for old drugs.

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