The future of medicine is off-world: Has drug production moved to space?

The future of medicine may be taking shape in space. On Wednesday, February 21, a capsule returning to Earth from space contained antiviral drugs grown in a microgravity environment. A US-based space company has developed this drug, which is used to treat HIV and hepatitis C in Low Earth Orbit.

On Wednesday, February 21, an interesting package returned to Earth from space. It was the capsule of the W-1 mission, an orbital platform manufactured by a California-based space company that landed at the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR), containing antiviral drugs grown in the microgravity environment of Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

In particular, the company's vision is to develop pharmaceuticals and other products in space and send them back to Earth via its own specialized re-entry capsules. Traditionally, conducting research in microgravity was something that could only be done by astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS).

With the increasing accessibility provided by reusable rockets and ride-sharing programs, the situation is changing rapidly, and many industries, from biomedical and advanced materials research to manufacturing (to name a few), want in on the trend. According to the company, the process in microgravity dramatically changes buoyancy, natural transport, precipitation and phase separation.This has the potential to produce high-quality drugs with more perfect crystal structures due to the absence of gravitational stresses, leading to increased shelf life and efficacy.It has developed an antiviral drug used to treat HIV and hepatitis C in space.Now the drug will be studied at facilities in Los Angeles. In an interview last year, the company's CEO Will Bruey said, "We're making medicine in space. Eliminating gravity allows us to make drugs that you can't normally make on Earth. Gravity is kind of like a parameter. If you put a temperature knob on an oven, you create a world full of new recipes and new foods you can produce. Similarly, if you can change gravity, you can change the chemical process of drug formulations."