Pharmaceutical scientists come up against a tough limitations here on Earth: gravity. Varda Space wants to vary that.
The corporate has raised a large recent round to show space into the “ultimate high ground” for the production of critical pharmaceutical components that may be brought back to Earth and used to make finished drugs.
The corporate’s $187 million Series C funding round announced Thursday will likely be used to construct out a brand new laboratory facility that might transform Varda’s orbital manufacturing process right into a lucrative mental property-generating machine.
The ten,000-square-foot-lab space in El Segundo, California will enable Varda pharmaceutical scientists to find out which biologics, like proteins and antibodies, are probably the most promising candidates for space-based crystallization. They are going to essentially perform “the upfront work” to find out which assets are good candidates for an orbital mission, and what conditions to place them through in space, Varda co-founder Delian Asparouhov explained in an interview with TechCrunch.
“The corporate can go and do process engineering to know at what temperatures and what conditions do the biologics crystallize ahead of time, in order that after we stand up in orbit the bioreactor knows what to do,” Asparouhov said.
Varda is in conversation with leading pharmaceutical manufacturers which can be battling particular problems, like crystallizing a selected ingredient, or issues with drug purity or shelf-life stability. The corporate’s aim is to make use of its lab and orbital spacecraft to unravel those problems, and in the method generate IP that may be patented and licensed to drugmakers.
The lab will provide opportunity for the corporate to generate mental property that might prove precious further down within the drug production life-cycle. Asparouhov said he expects to see a much greater volume of Varda patents filed because the lab comes online.
The brand new funding was led by firms Natural Capital and Shrug Capital, with additional contribution from Peter Thiel, Lux Capital, Khosla Ventures and Caffeinated Capital. Asparouhov is a partner at Founders Fund, the firm Thiel co-founded twenty years ago, and he as previously a principal at Khosla.
Varda has launched and returned three successful missions thus far since 2023; the corporate anticipates completing 4 missions this yr alone.
For its first three missions, Varda housed its in-space manufacturing module inside a Rocket Lab-made spacecraft. The corporate has since taken all the spacecraft manufacturing in-house. Varda built two spacecraft this yr and goals to double that manufacturing cadence to 4 next yr.
The corporate also generates revenue by turning its spacecraft right into a hypersonic flight testbed for the U.S. Department of Defense. Historically, hypersonic flight testing had an extended lead time and sky-high prices, but Varda is proposing a launch-and-return cadence and the novel opportunity to get better tested material.