Get the latest tech news
Varda Space’s orbital drug factory success fuels $90M in new funding
Varda Space Industries has closed a massive tranche of funding just weeks after its first drug manufacturing capsule returned from orbit. The company’s
This is for a few different reasons, Asparhouv explained: because of the crew, there are significant limitations to the types of solvents or other materials you can bring onboard the ISS; there are constraints related to intellectual property for work that happens on the station; and pharmaceutical lab equipment designed for use in-space was generally lacking in sophistication compared to the terrestrial versions. Even beyond these external partnerships, the startup has made significant headway in its own right, as the success of the first mission showed: their reentry capsule appears to have performed flawlessly and the experiment to reformulate the antiviral drug Ritonavir was executed without a hitch. Varda has also started publishing the results of its internal R&D efforts, including a scientific paper on its hyper-gravity (as opposed to microgravity) crystallization platform, which the startup developed as a sort of screening method prior to sending drugs to space.
Or read this on TechCrunch
