Varda partners with major US pharma firm to develop drugs in space
▼ Summary
– NASA has studied microgravity’s impact on drug development for decades, with work accelerating after the International Space Station’s completion.
– In 2019, a more uniform crystalline form of the cancer drug Keytruda was grown in microgravity, enabling potential injection instead of intravenous administration.
– NASA subsidized most research costs, but long lead times to send experiments to space were a trade-off.
– Private company Varda Space Industries has launched small, uncrewed capsules with autonomous bioreactors to process pharmaceuticals in microgravity.
– Varda announced a collaboration with United Therapeutics to use microgravity to improve treatments for rare lung disease, marking the first use of private capital for space-based drug production.
For decades, NASA has provided scientists with the opportunity to explore how microgravity affects drug development, starting with experiments aboard the Space Shuttle. That research gained real momentum in the 2010s, following the completion of the International Space Station and the presence of full-time crew members dedicated to scientific work.
Some notable breakthroughs emerged during this period. In 2019, researchers successfully grew a more uniform crystalline form of the cancer drug Keytruda in space. That achievement opened the door to administering the drug via injection instead of requiring patients to spend hours in a clinic for intravenous delivery.
Much of this work was subsidized by NASA, which typically covered the steep costs of transporting research to the ISS and paying for astronaut time to conduct experiments. But there were trade-offs, including long lead times to get materials into orbit. Still, it became increasingly clear that there could be real commercial potential in manufacturing drugs beyond Earth’s atmosphere.
Varda begins operations in orbit
Enter Varda Space Industries, a private company that has started flying small, uncrewed capsules equipped with autonomous bioreactors. These vehicles spend a few weeks to months in microgravity, processing pharmaceuticals without the interference of gravity. Varda launched its first capsule, W-1, in mid-2023, and five additional vehicles have followed since.
The pharmaceutical industry appears to be taking notice. On Wednesday morning, Varda announced a major new partnership with United Therapeutics Corporation to investigate how microgravity can help develop better treatments for a rare lung disease. Under the agreement, the two companies will leverage microgravity’s effect on the structure and crystallization properties of therapeutic compounds to improve their stability and how they are delivered.
In an interview, Delian Asparouhov, president and co-founder of Varda, described the deal as a pivotal moment for the orbital economy.
“This is the first time that a large, publicly traded company is using capital from their own balance sheet, not just from NASA, to build and produce a product in microgravity,” Asparouhov said. “This is the first, and we expect there to be many more. I do think it’s a really good historical moment for the space industry.”
(Source: Ars Technica)
