Making drugs in space isn't a gimmick: microgravity can recrystallise drugs Earth can't
Microgravity is a variable you can't turn down on Earth — no convection, no settling, so crystals and cells grow differently. Varda is betting on turning drugs that need hours of IV infusion into a single shot.
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Space pharma has two modes of play, not one
Michael Greshko splits on-orbit platforms into two kinds: one is the fully autonomous Varda-style capsule, where the experiment runs with nobody aboard; the other is the commercial space station, where experiments can run autonomously for long stretches but researchers can also go up and tend them in person. The distinction matters because it determines who gets the data and who can change the experimental parameters. Greshko says we're at a crossroads for ‘the future shape of human presence in orbit’, and the hardware is being built in an unremarkable office park somewhere in California, and it's already flying.
— Michael GreshkoMicrogravity is the knob you can't turn on Earth
The core point researchers keep stressing isn't that ‘space is cool’, it's that 1G is a variable you can only accept on Earth, never dial down. Under zero gravity there's no convection, no settling — what you put in just stays there. The result is that crystals form differently, and cells proliferate and build structures differently from ground culture. Greshko's metaphor: it gives researchers another knob they can turn. This is the foundation of the whole argument — if microgravity were only ‘slightly different’, none of the business logic that follows would hold.
— Michael GreshkoVarda treats itself as a pharma company, not a space company
Varda builds and operates autonomous capsules, but multiple company insiders Greshko interviewed see themselves as ‘a pharmaceutical company that happens to be in space’, not a space company. The specific bet: crystallising a drug under microgravity into a form with extremely small particles and highly uniform size lets you concentrate and dilute a drug that otherwise needs hours of IV infusion down to a single shot — without changing the compound itself, only the processing and crystallisation. In 2023 they demonstrated in orbit a particularly difficult crystal form of the HIV drug ritonavir, held it stable for a period, and returned it safely to the ground.
— Michael GreshkoBeing a little better isn't enough — it has to be a lot better
Greshko states plainly that economics is the key factor. Launch costs are lower than twenty years ago and are expected to keep falling, but ‘for space to work as a manufacturing site, it can't be just a little better, it has to be a lot better’. He adds a crucial caveat: there are real benefits to operating in space, but that doesn't mean the numbers ultimately work out. The other hard problem is FDA inspection — if this is to become a routine part of pharma manufacturing, you have to prove the whole chain from launch, to on-orbit operations, to reentry, to recovery is reliable, consistent and as boring as ground production.
— Michael GreshkoThe ISS is retiring, and researchers fear a gap
The ISS spent its first decade being assembled, and only in its second decade was it outfitted as a laboratory and began accumulating experience; real results have come in the last 5 to 10 years. Multiple researchers Greshko interviewed are quite nervous about the ISS entering its late life: if commercial stations take over and agencies like NASA become customers, those stations may not have the full suite of precision instruments the ISS has when they start up. The core anxiety isn't ‘will there be a next platform’, but how long the interruption will be between the ISS ending and the next platform actually running.
— Michael GreshkoChina's space station is already doing stem-cell embryo models
Greshko says the US is an important centre, but China is doing a lot too: China has its own Tiangong space station and is doing increasingly bold stem-cell research. Earlier this year there was an announcement that astronauts on Tiangong began using stem cells under microgravity to model the early stages of embryo development, a first in the field. He also notes that US researchers recognise the space competition will extend to pushing the scientific frontier — this isn't unique to space, but part of the two countries' broader rivalry positioning, including the race back to the Moon.
— Michael GreshkoThree narwhal traits make them a sampler
Mads Peter Heide Jørgensen gives three reasons: narwhals dive very deep, past 1500 metres and sometimes to 1800, effectively profiling the entire water column; they have extremely high site fidelity, returning to the same waters year after year, so the same body of water can be sampled repeatedly across years and seasons; and third, they aren't afraid of sea ice or glacial ice, swimming where research ship captains won't dare go, spending much of the summer right at the glacier front. Together, these three are what make animal-borne CTD sensors scientifically defensible.
— Mads Peter Heide JørgensenAtlantic water has pushed 300 km to the glacier front
The hardest finding in the data: the inflow of Atlantic water is markedly larger than previously thought. Below 200 metres in the Scoresby Sound fjord system, the water is completely dominated by Atlantic water; the lens of polar water on top is shrinking. More critically, even at glacier fronts 300 kilometres from the open ocean, Atlantic water inflow is visible — this melts the glacier front from below, making sea ice slide more easily and releasing icebergs. Jørgensen acknowledges this is a positive feedback: warm water melts ice, melting ice releases fresh water, and fresh water in turn slows global ocean circulation.
— Mads Peter Heide JørgensenSix whales over six years bought two thousand full profiles
The CTD tagging used only six animals over three years, two per year, with cost one of the limiting factors — but Jørgensen stresses that compared with chartering an icebreaker that can operate in these waters for months, the tag cost is still small. What surprised him was the volume of data: more than 2000 full profiles, with one animal's tag working from August one year all the way to July the next. He also points out the limits of animal sampling: you can't control where narwhals go, they never go to Iceland, so this supplements traditional oceanographic sampling, it doesn't replace it.
— Mads Peter Heide JørgensenIndira Gandhi staked the largest seed shipment in history
Priyambada Jayakumar tells the story of Swaminathan's political alliance with Indira Gandhi: Gandhi overrode her entire cabinet to approve the largest seed shipment in human history — 18000 tonnes of seed from Mexico. The backdrop was US food aid with diplomatic strings attached; the Johnson administration had held grain ships off Kolkata until Gandhi gave ground on a foreign policy issue. Jayakumar says Gandhi told Swaminathan at the time, ‘I hear about your magic seeds, how soon can you give me ten million tonnes’, because she wanted to escape US aid. That bet became the starting point of the Green Revolution.
— Priyambada JayakumarIn their own words · checked verbatim
If we're running experiments at the bench in a lab on Earth, 1G is a variable that you just get and you don't get to dial that down.
Michael Greshko4:07
There are benefits to be gained from operating in space. That does not necessarily mean that the dollars and cents of it will end up working out.
Michael Greshko8:12
Unlike many research vessels, NARWHALs are not afraid of sea ice or glacial ice.
Mads Peter Heide Jørgensen24:29
We are restricted by what the narwhals want to do.
Mads Peter Heide Jørgensen30:33
If you can't grow your own food and after say you can't be calling your own political shots
Priyambada Jayakumar34:36
The Green Revolution, in his own words, was a Frankenstein in the making.
Priyambada Jayakumar45:45
Figures
| Continuous human habitation on the ISS | More than 25 years | 2:05 |
| HIV drug demonstrated in orbit by Varda | ritonavir | 6:10 |
| Narwhal dive depth | More than 1500 metres, sometimes to 1800 metres | 24:29 |
| Scoresby Sound resident population | About 350 | 21:28 |
| CTD tag deployment scale | Six animals, three years, two per year | 26:31 |
| Full profiles obtained | More than 2000 | 29:33 |
| Depth dominated by Atlantic water | Below 200 metres in the fjord | 27:31 |
| Distance from glacier to open ocean | 300 kilometres | 27:31 |
| Seed shipped from Mexico to India | 18000 tonnes | 41:42 |
| Age at which Swaminathan died | 98 | 33:36 |
Glossary
- microgravity
- An environment close to weightlessness where convection and settling essentially disappear, changing how crystals and cells grow.
- CTD tag
- A device measuring conductivity, temperature and depth, here carried by narwhals to collect seawater profiles.
- Atlantication
- The ongoing intrusion of relatively warm, high-salinity Atlantic water into high-latitude coastal waters and fjords.
- organoid
- A three-dimensional miniature tissue self-organised from stem cells, used in drug and developmental research.
- site fidelity
- The habit of animals returning to the same waters year after year, which makes repeated sampling possible.
How to listen
Investors and founders watching biomanufacturing, space commercialisation and drug delivery; people working on ocean or climate data can look at the narwhal segment.
The Swaminathan biographical interview leans on personal narrative, low information density, skippable.