CITY HILL ARTS TO PRODUCE INCREDIBLE MEDICAL THRILLER "CHASING MY CURE" BASED ON LIFE OF DR. DAVID FAJGENBAUM

-Academy Award Winning Producer Wendy Finerman collaborates with Former Star Quarterback turned Pioneering Doctor and entrepreneur Jonathan E. Lim for inspirational Medical Drama-

LOS ANGELES, April 17, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- City Hill Arts, the film and media production and financing company founded by biotech entrepreneur Jonathan E. Lim, M.D., has optioned and immediately put into development Chasing My Cure, a project based on the true story of David Fajgenbaum, a former star quarterback-turned-medical student who began a furious charge to save his own life when he was diagnosed with a rare and usually fatal illness.

The story centers on Fajgenbaum, once a beast-like Georgetown quarterback and now a brilliant medical student, who is struck down with a fatal disease and given only six months to live. With no known cure, he gathers together an unconventional team to challenge every presumption of the medical establishment in a race to save his own life.

Today, Dr. Fajgenbaum is a leader in the medical community. Dr. Fajgenbaum and his team at Every Cure and the University of Pennsylvania were recently chronicled in the New York Times for their work using AI to repurpose existing medications to treat rare diseases.

Chasing My Cure will be written by Amy Snow and produced by Academy Award winning producer Wendy Finerman and Robin Jonas alongside Lim. The film will be executive produced by Steven P. Wegner and Lisa Zupan.

"I am so thankful to be alive and to be able to share my story with the world, but I never could have dreamed that it would end this way," said Dr. Fajgenbaum. "Going through it, the experience felt pretty similar to a movie thriller—the same drop in your stomach, the same fear about how it's all going to turn out. And, at times, I lost all hope, but also, like a movie, I kept grinding and believing it would work out—and that is what I hope will make this movie gripping and inspiring for audiences."

"Chasing My Cure is precisely the kind of movie we are pursuing at City Hill Arts—a story of someone doing something extraordinary," added Dr. Lim. "The fact that there's a medical and biotech angle to the story is certainly a plus, given that we know that world so well. But audiences will connect with the unwavering determination to live, and the love and ingenuity that helped make it possible, that defines David's story. He's an incredible individual and a true movie hero."

The deal was negotiated by Glenn Feig from Reder & Feig, LLP for City Hill Arts, and by Brooke Erlich from CAA and Jeffrey Smith from Greenberg Traurig, LLP for David Fajgenbaum.

Amy Snow is currently writing/directing a six episode series for Pinnacle Productions/Sony for Pure Flix based on the book Always Watching by Chevy Stevens. Her feature Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters just came out on Pure Flix. Snow also adapted the romantic comedy I Owe You One for Hello Sunshine, based on the best-selling book by Sophie Kinsella. 

Independent film and television producer Wendy Finerman founded Wendy Finerman Productions in 1988. In 1994, she became the first solo female producer in the history of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to have received an Oscar for Best Picture for Forrest Gump. Her extensive list of credits includes Fairy Tale –A True Story which earned her a BAFTA Award for Best Children's Film, P.S. I Love You, Drumline, Stepmom, and Academy Award nominated The Devil Wears Prada. Collectively, all of her films have grossed over 1.6 billion dollars in international theatrical release and earned 160 award nominations. Her next film is The Devil Wears Prada 2.

David Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, MSc, is Co-Founder and President of Every Cure and a physician-scientist at the University of Pennsylvania where he is one of the youngest faculty members to receive tenure at Penn Medicine. He's also a patient battling a deadly disease for which he discovered a lifesaving treatment by repurposing an existing drug, an experience he recounted in his national bestselling memoir, 'Chasing My Cure'. Determined to unlock more hidden cures in FDA-approved medications, David has advanced 13 more repurposed treatments for diseases they weren't originally intended to treat. He recently co-founded Every Cure to accelerate the search for repurposed treatments and is pioneering a new field called "computational pharmacophenomics," which uses AI to systematically match all drugs with additional diseases they may treat. The U.S. government and the TED Audacious Project have announced more than $100 million in funding to power this transformative vision.

One of the youngest ever awardees of multiple top NIH and FDA grants, David has published over 100 scientific papers in leading journals, such as The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, and the Journal of Clinical Investigation, which included a paper selected as one of the top innovations in science and medicine of 2020. He has been profiled by The New York Times, TODAY, GMA, USA TODAY, and Forbes 30Under30 and awarded 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 2024 WebMD Health Hero Award.

ABOUT CITY HILL ARTS

City Hill Arts is a film production and finance venture seeking to revitalize people, planet and perspective. The focus is on compelling, character-driven stories from diverse genres intended to inspire, unite and entertain audiences worldwide.

In 2024, City Hill Arts had two films released to critical and audience acclaim, The Secret Art Of Human Flight and My Penguin Friend (currently on VOD and major streaming services). Other projects from CITY HILL ARTS include H Is For Hawk starring Claire Foy and Brendan Gleeson, and the narrative feature Last Days, directed by Justin Lin. Also in post are three documentaries, including How I Faked My Life With AI, Oscar-winner Louis Psihoyos' Tainted Love, and Bucks County, USA from director Barry Levinson. In the Spring of 2025, City Hill Arts is producing and co-financing two films: The Housewife with Naomi Watts and Tye Sheridan, directed by Ben Shirinian and produced by Robbie Brenner; and in May, Rain Reign, starring Paul Rudd and Jeremy Sisto, directed by Erika Burke Rossa.

City Hill Arts was launched in 2022 by serial entrepreneur Jonathan E. Lim who has served as Chairman and/or CEO of six companies in the life sciences (Halozyme, Eclipse, Ignyta, Bonti, Erasca, and Boundless Bio) that have collectively raised over $3 billion and generated more than $10 billion of shareholder value, including consecutive acquisitions of Ignyta by Roche for $1.7 billion and Bonti by Allergan for $260 million in 2018.

Contact:

Steve Elzer
Elzer Kaplan & Co
[email protected]

SOURCE City Hill Arts