VCs Invest $90M in Varda Space Industries' Microgravity Drug Manufacturing (techcrunch.com) 20
"Varda Space Industries has closed a massive tranche of funding," reports TechCrunch, "just weeks after its first drug manufacturing capsule returned from orbit."
Varda has now raised $145 million to date, the article points out, and the $90 million in new Series B funding "marks an inflection point for the company, which is now gearing up to scale from the initial demonstration mission to a regular set of missions carrying customer payloads, Varda founder Delian Asparouhov told TechCrunch." El Segundo-based Varda was founded in 2021 by Asparouhov, who is also a partner at Founders Fund, and Will Bruey, a spacecraft engineer who cut his teeth at SpaceX. The pair had an audacious goal to commercialize what until very recently was promising but ultimately small-scale research into the effects of microgravity on pharmaceutical crystals... Astronauts have been conducting protein crystallization experiments in space for decades on the International Space Station and before that, the Space Shuttle. But the business case for expanding this research has never materialized — until now...
Part of the reason Varda is possible today is due to the availability of regular, low-cost rideshare launches from SpaceX and Rocket Lab's innovations in satellite bus manufacturing. 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 HIV medicine ritonavir was executed without a hitch, it says. 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. [The paper is titled "Gravity as a Knob for Tuning Particle Size Distributions of Small Molecules."] It's an entirely new field of research that takes advantage of the ability to truly unlock gravity as a variable in scientific experiments. "Over time, we will be able to generate data sets between both hyper-gravity and microgravity and start to show correlations," he said....
In a recent podcast appearance, he specified that the all-in initial mission cost around $12 million, which will drop to $5-6 million by mission 4 and $2.5 million or less by mission 10.) Larger capsules are also in the longer-term pipeline, though also not until the 2027 time frame. Asparouhov also confirmed that pharmaceuticals will be Varda's sole focus for the next 10-20 (or more) years, based on the company's conviction that pharmaceutical products will generate more economic value compared to other materials. A lot of that comes down to the fact that there are a significant set of drugs that require only a "seed" of the material that can only be made in microgravity, and the rest of the drug formulation can be completed here on Earth...
The company is also aiming to improve the processing capabilities of the on-board pharmaceutical reactor. The first mission carried just one drug protein, but in the future the company hopes to process multiple drug products that could be run through different processing regimes. In the future, other missions could carry larger reactors for drugs that do need more than the "seed" crystal, and those mission profiles would be closer to something like mass manufacturing.
Varda already has "a handful" of signed contracts with biotech companies, according to the article — and Varda's next manufacturing mission "will launch later this year."
Varda has now raised $145 million to date, the article points out, and the $90 million in new Series B funding "marks an inflection point for the company, which is now gearing up to scale from the initial demonstration mission to a regular set of missions carrying customer payloads, Varda founder Delian Asparouhov told TechCrunch." El Segundo-based Varda was founded in 2021 by Asparouhov, who is also a partner at Founders Fund, and Will Bruey, a spacecraft engineer who cut his teeth at SpaceX. The pair had an audacious goal to commercialize what until very recently was promising but ultimately small-scale research into the effects of microgravity on pharmaceutical crystals... Astronauts have been conducting protein crystallization experiments in space for decades on the International Space Station and before that, the Space Shuttle. But the business case for expanding this research has never materialized — until now...
Part of the reason Varda is possible today is due to the availability of regular, low-cost rideshare launches from SpaceX and Rocket Lab's innovations in satellite bus manufacturing. 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 HIV medicine ritonavir was executed without a hitch, it says. 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. [The paper is titled "Gravity as a Knob for Tuning Particle Size Distributions of Small Molecules."] It's an entirely new field of research that takes advantage of the ability to truly unlock gravity as a variable in scientific experiments. "Over time, we will be able to generate data sets between both hyper-gravity and microgravity and start to show correlations," he said....
In a recent podcast appearance, he specified that the all-in initial mission cost around $12 million, which will drop to $5-6 million by mission 4 and $2.5 million or less by mission 10.) Larger capsules are also in the longer-term pipeline, though also not until the 2027 time frame. Asparouhov also confirmed that pharmaceuticals will be Varda's sole focus for the next 10-20 (or more) years, based on the company's conviction that pharmaceutical products will generate more economic value compared to other materials. A lot of that comes down to the fact that there are a significant set of drugs that require only a "seed" of the material that can only be made in microgravity, and the rest of the drug formulation can be completed here on Earth...
The company is also aiming to improve the processing capabilities of the on-board pharmaceutical reactor. The first mission carried just one drug protein, but in the future the company hopes to process multiple drug products that could be run through different processing regimes. In the future, other missions could carry larger reactors for drugs that do need more than the "seed" crystal, and those mission profiles would be closer to something like mass manufacturing.
Varda already has "a handful" of signed contracts with biotech companies, according to the article — and Varda's next manufacturing mission "will launch later this year."
What is the DEA doing? (Score:3)
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If elected, I will block out the sun AND GET SPACEX TO PAY FOR IT!"
-- (Guess Who?)
--
**Life is too short to stuff a mushroom.**
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Letsee now... we have,
- guns in the workplace
- guns in schools and campuses
- guns in subways and buses
- guns in folk festivals and rock concerts
- guns in airplanes and airports
- guns in hospitals
- guns in church [my personal favorite]
And now (wait for it)...
- GUNS IN ORBITAL SPACECRAFT!
Somehow, methinks the DEA will think this is a good idea.
:-)
--- ." -- Fox Mulder
"The question is not whether I'm paranoid, Scully. The question is whether I'm paranoid enough
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Because “guns”. (Score:1)
Thousands of flights happen every single day in America. Armed Air Marshal numbers went from 35 to over 4,000 post 9/11.
After decades of that, do you know what the utter lack of bullet holes in commercial jetliner fuselage represent?
Ignorant people making panicky assumptions, because “guns”.
[OT] Re:Because “guns”. (Score:3)
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy target shooting... its the people shooting that concerns me.
Guns are tools for putting holes in things. Canada has more guns per capita (albeit, long-guns--not pistols) than the U.S, yet there are 1/100th of shooting deaths there. Guns aren't the problem.
The problem is: The culture of entrenched systemic violence that exists in America today.
And no, I don't know what-on-Earth to do about it, but it seems like celebrating putting (yet more) armed police--in orbit (ferchrists
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Too late. A firearm [wikipedia.org] is part of the standard survival kit for Soyuz spacecraft.
So yes, there's been a gun on the ISS basically forever, buried in the survival pack for the Soyuz.
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In Soviet ISS, vacuum suck YOU!
--
"These are aichelugar bullets. My grandfather snared a shitload of them back in WW2. They're like tranquilizers--only they break the surface of the skin, enough to cause a little blood but no real damage." -- J.D., "Heathers" (1984)
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First needed drug (Score:2)
What is the ACTUAL purpose here. (Score:2)
So, they “reformulated” an HIV medicine. And why exactly did they do it?
Yes, there’s a valid reason I’m asking. Quite often we find Greed N. Corruption in the Medical Industrial Complex “reformulating” drugs for the sole purpose of securing another patent on a slightly-modified version of the original formula that was “at risk” of going generic.
If NASA has been doing micro-gravity experiments for decades, what have been the results and benefits of that? Is
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Ritonavir is one of the two antiviral ingredients in Paxlovid, which is used to rapidly treat early covid. But this 3rd form is way better at killing viruses, it's just harder to make in Gravity.
Ah, there it is. The actual reason. Guess we’re expecting more viral announcements regarding the upcoming “serious” COVID seasons. Make sure you get your new-and-improved booster today! Now made with anti-gravity technology.
Sometimes getting “way better” at killing something, can be a bad thing. Just ask antibiotic-resistant bacteria that kills millions every year now.
Space Crack. (Score:2)
It'll send you to the moon, Alice.