Varda Space is utilizing microgravity for pharmaceutical research

Varda Space Industries Co-Founders Will Bruey and Delian Asparouhouv sit down with Yahoo Finance Senior Reporter Akiko Fujita to give insight into the advantages of pharmaceutical research in microgravity.

Bruey outlines how microgravity works and how the company is utilizing it here on Earth: "It's ubiquitous and it's impossible to create in perpetuity on Earth. And so we essentially are building space manufacturing modules because we can change the outcome of chemical systems like no one else can on Earth."

"In 2019, Merck (MRK) actually published a particularly interesting result where they actually took their blockbuster monoclonal antibody, Keytruda. It does $25 billion of revenue for them every year, financial analysts estimate that it represents about $125 billion of their market cap," Asparouhouv elaborates, adding:

"They were able to show that... when you turn off gravity, the chemical system changes, and it changes in a very unexpected way. And the result of that change was And the result of that change was they actually found... a version of the drug up in space that, rather than having to be delivered the way that it is today via an intravenous drip, where you're going in once every two weeks for sort of 4 or 6-hour appointment... Instead they could actually just send you home with a syringe that you could take in the safety and comfort of your own home."

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This post was written by Nicholas Jacobino

Video transcript

There's definitely a couple of different categories of space manufacturing.

We really focus on like space manufacturing for use down here on earth.

So that means you basically take precursor material from here on earth, fabricate it, modify it basically in the unique microgravity environment of space and then bring it back down for use down here on earth, which we believe is basically the largest and nearest term, basically commercial market application.

There's definitely another category of space manufacturing, which is sort of like manufacturing things in space for use up in space, but there's not a whole lot of buyers or customers up in space.

Most people that buy things are down here on earth.

And so we focus more on that sort of former, former category.

Well, what makes micro micro gravity so conducive to pharmaceutical.

Yes.

So micro gravity will affect the outcome of chemical systems.

So that's the fundamental thing to understand in the same way that temperature can outcome or change the outcome of chemical systems.

So micro gravity is free in outer space, it's ubiquitous and it's impossible to create in perpetuity on earth.

And so we essentially are building space manufacturing modules because we can out or change the outcome of chemical systems like no one else can on earth.

And all right.

So which chemical system should we, should we change?

First?

Pharmaceuticals is the clear answer from both, you know, an aspirational, what's the best thing for humanity aspect and also from a dollars per kilogram perspective, it's large market and the most expensive chemical systems per unit mass.

And we're not the first to think about this.

People have been talking about sort of pharmaceutical manufacturing in space over the past 50 years, the current National Ministry of Bill Nelson was doing this in the early eighties, tons of large top 20 BioPharma have done, you know, these types of small scale experimentations on the International Space Station, Merck Eli Lilly Janson and Janson Bristol Myers Squibb.

And in 2019, mer actually published a particularly interesting result where they actually took their blockbuster monoclonal Antibody Kru just $25 billion of revenue for them every year.

Financial analysts estimate that it represents about 125 billion of their market cap.

They were able to show that you mentioned when you turn off gravity, the chemical system changes and they changed it in a very unexpected way.

And the result of that change was they actually found a drug, a version of the drug up in space that rather than having to be delivered the way that it is today, the intravenous drip where you going in every sort of two weeks for, you know, sort of four or six hour appointment.

It's hugely disruptive.

Instead, they could actually just send you home with a syringe that you could take in the safety and comfort of your own home.

And so it's a huge outcome for patients.

It's a huge outcome obviously for Merck because they now have an improved performance drug that extends their patent window.

But ultimately, the International Space Station wasn't a place where they could do this at a sort of commercial scale, you know, sort of the low cost high cadence.

The sort of thesis behind Varta was, well, SpaceX has made it reusable rockets, made it that access to space was very cost effective.

But we needed to offer them a platform that was also cost effective.

They didn't have humans on board was low cost autonomous and can do all that sort of pharmaceutical work.

And so we work with, you know, top 20 BioPharma mid stage biotech to help them sort of get results like what Merck got in 2019.

In the simplest terms, when you talk about sort of crystallization for those who aren't as familiar, what is it about micro gravity that makes it good for that process totally.

And when we say the word crystal, we just mean essentially like a powder like you would see pressed into a pill.

The reason it's called a crystal is the technical term is just how the molecules are arranged and how the molecules are arranged are fundamental in the macroscopic properties of the drug.

So an example would be like a graphite pencil versus a diamond.

They're both just carbon carbon atoms, but they're arranged in a different way.

And so that arrangement defines the difference between the hardness of the diamond and softness of your pencil.

And for our pharmaceutical companies, they care about things like solubility.

How quickly does this dissolve in the bloodstream?

So that's a macroscopic property that depends on how the atoms are arranged or in technical terms, the crystallization of the product.

So in micro gravity, there's less disturbances from the crystallization process.

It does.

And so you see these crystals nucleate in suspension rather than sinking, causing turbulence sedimentation buoyancy, all of those effects are removed in microgravity and therefore, you can create different atomic structures and therefore different macroscopic properties.

So de gave a great example of going from an IV bag to a shot.

Another one would be like a pill to an inhalable because you can make the particle size distribution more narrow.

So we don't invent drugs per se.

What happens is the pharmaceutical company will come to us with a molecule and we say, hey, we can convert that molecule into a better version of the medicine using micro gravity in the same way that another formulation provider on the ground might say we have some special technique on the ground that can also change the formula like a special ingredient or something like that.

So our business model is not novel like there are tons of formulation platform companies that work with top 20 Pharma stage biotechs to provide formulations.

We are just one that has a knob being gravity that no one else has.