A California start-up recently recovered a batch of drugs manufactured by an automated satellite
by GILES SPARROW Giles Sparrow is a science journalist who specialises in space and astronomy.
ANALYSIS
On 21 February, a metre-wide (3ft) space capsule landed in the Utah desert after eight months in orbit. Its cargo: a batch of Ritonavir, an antiviral drug used in the treatment of HIV and COVID-19. Carried out by Californian start-up Varda Space Industries, the mission was intended to demonstrate the potential for the automated manufacturing of pharmaceutical drugs in space, possibly paving the way for new and more efficient methods of developing medicines.
Varda’s W-1 mission launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in June 2023. The capsule being tested weighed around 90kg (almost 200lbs), even though it’s theoretically capable of manufacturing nearly 100kg of products over several months spent in orbit. For this initial mission, however, just a small amount of Ritonavir was manufactured during a 27-hour test run.
In-flight analysis indicated that the manufacturing process ran as planned and although final results are not yet available, Varda is already busy preparing for a second mission that will carry its first commercial payload into space.
But why go to all of the trouble?
Over the past few decades, experiments aboard the International Space Station and other spacecraft have proved that it’s possible to make small quantities of pharmaceutical drugs in space.
It turns out that microgravity conditions cause many of the processes used to build complex crystalline molecules – such as the proteins and antibodies used in many medicines to treat everything from cancer to heart disease – to behave differently from how they do on Earth.
For instance, the liquid solutions from which crystals form no longer separate according to density, plus solids don’t naturally fall or rise within them. And the lack of gravity means any structures that grow don’t warp out of shape and change their nature.
“The evidence suggests that crystals grown in a microgravity environment have an 80 per cent or better chance of being superior compared to their Earth-grown counterparts,” says Prof Anne Wilson, a researcher based at Butler University in Indianapolis who
