Scientists cooked 'real good' drugs space and then sent back to Earth

Varda Space Industries, a company whose goal is to cook real life-saving drugs in space, has posted the results from its first in-orbit manufacturing stint.

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The goal of the company was to autonomously manufacture pharmaceuticals in microgravity or within Earth's orbit. The idea behind this process is to reduce the cost of life-saving drugs, and according to a recent paper published on a pre-print server, Varda Space is now one step closer to achieving it. The company dubbed the mission W-1, and it included sending Varda's hardware into Earth's orbit, where it would then autonomously manufacture the therapeutics.

Varda Space sent a capsule into Earth's orbit, and it remained there for seven months. When it returned back to Earth's surface on February 21, the capsule contained the life-saving HIV/AIDS medication ritonavir. According to Varda Space cofounder Delian Asparouhov, "Them space drugs cooked real good". Notably, manufacturing pharmaceuticals in microgravity has been explored before with astronauts aboard the International Space Station and other testing via parabolic flights.

"By providing a detailed experimental dataset centered on survivability, we pave the way for the future of in-space processing of medicines that enable the development of novel drug products on Earth and benefit long-duration human exploration initiatives," states the paper's abstract

However, Varda Space plans on making the process much more affordable with uncrewed capsules that will be designed to be mini factories and the re-entry vehicle.

"By providing a detailed experimental dataset centered on survivability, we pave the way for the future of in-space processing of medicines that enable the development of novel drug products on Earth and benefit long-duration human exploration initiatives," states the paper