Janet Woodcock, a former top FDA official, will join the patient advocacy group’s board of directors

An organization that searches thousands of existing drugs to see if they can cure hard-to-treat diseases has a powerful new ally: Janet Woodcock, who for decades was one of the most influential figures at the Food and Drug Administration.

The group, Every Cure, is led by physician David Fajgenbaum, who has told his own story time and time again: When he was a young medical student, he was struck by a rare disease that left his athletic, football-honed body bloated and weak . and almost killed him not once, but five times. He was read the last rites until his own research led his doctors to try an existing drug, the transplant drug sirolimus, which put his disease into remission.

That effort initially led him to create a patient advocacy group focused on his own condition, Castleman disease. But his opening slowly widened; Every Cure is looking for treatments that can help patients with numerous rare diseases.

Woodcock, who retired from the FDA in January, has now joined the group’s board.