Why the future of drugs might be in space

When you hear the phrase “space drugs” you might think of the spice melange that grants prophetic powers to Paul Atreides in Dune (see: Timothée Chalamet with his eyes stained blue from snorting glittery sand), or maybe the designer drugs of RoboCop or various Philip K Dick stories. The reality is, of course, slightly less glamorous, but manufacturing some drugs in space could be the future of IRL pharmaceuticals.

Some Big Pharma companies have been working on space-based drug development for a few years, in collaboration with big players like NASA, SpaceX, and the International Space Station. Now, though, a new generation of inventors and startup companies has emerged with a specific focus on making out-of-this-world drug development a reality. Some have even sent experiments into orbit, and returned their successful space drug payloads back to Earth.

WHAT HAPPENS IN MICROGRAVITY?

In near-weightless conditions, crystallisation – a vital part of the drug manufacturing process – happens very differently. Without the planet’s gravitational pull, which can cause imperfections and fluctuations in size, the crystals in a drug can be custom-made to come out “small and uniform” or “large and ordered”, as explained by Varda. BioOrbit is trying to achieve a similar thing, creating a solution of tiny crystals to enable the production of new and improved immunotherapy drugs.

THE CRYSTALS – WHAT DO THEY DO?

According to BioOrbit, the formation of tiny crystals in microgravity will help develop cancer drugs with a much lower viscosity. Potentially, this would transform immunotherapy treatments, because the drugs could be injected under a patient’s skin at a convenient location, in contrast to the current intravenous method, which is long, invasive, and involves hours waiting in a hospital.

This serves as an illustration of how making drugs in space could increase “patient compliance”, or people’s receptiveness to taking drugs when they’re ill (especially in situations where the stakes are slightly lower). There are other benefits, too, though. For example, Varda points out that the resulting drugs could have an increased shelf-life, improved bioavailability – the amount of the drug that enters circulation and actually takes effect – and better efficiency, which should mean lower costs.

SO WHEN ARE SPACE DRUGS HITTING THE PHARMACY?

Drug development takes a very long time, and spots on spacecraft are very limited – all of this combined means that your drugs probably won’t be going to the moon and back in the near future. However, if we continue to launch hundreds of satellites and spacecraft every year, and build out research infrastructure in Earth’s orbit and on the moon, who knows? Maybe space drugs aren’t as far away as we think. Hopefully we’ll see the benefits back on Earth, at least enough to tide us over until we can travel the universe and find a source of spice.