Varda Space Industries, based in El Segundo, makes drugs in space. But Will Bruey, Varda co-founder and chief executive, says it’s not a big deal.

“Quite frankly, our pharmaceutical company customers do not care that we’re going to space,” said Bruey, who launched the company in 2021. “They think it’s neat, but what they’re really interested in is the formulation that microgravity provides.”

Bruey can’t stress enough how it’s not a big deal that his company makes drugs in space, and yet, the company announced in mid-July it raised $187 million in series C fundraising to do just that.

“The thing to really understand about Varda is that it’s equivalent to when refrigeration was first introduced into the pharmaceutical industry,” Bruey said.

It’s hard to convince someone that launching one of the most expensive materials into space in a dishwasher-sized spacecraft – rattling around in microgravity among the stars and then shooting back to Earth at a high velocity – is similar to a refrigerator. Indeed, the analogy holds up – much like how temperature control is another variable the pharmaceutical industry can use to crystalize drugs.

Varda has now given them the variable of gravity.

Variables of gravity

Using gravity, or the lack thereof, to crystalize active drug ingredients has been proven out at the International Space Station for years that allows the pharmaceutical industry to crystalize drugs that, thanks to technological advancements that reduced the cost of spaceflight, has only recently become a viable commercial option for the pharmaceutical industry. Varda’s capsules contain active pharmaceutical ingredients that go up to space via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, perform experiments autonomously to crystalize the payload, and return it to Earth in a temperature-controlled environment that doesn’t disturb the structure.

“We’re just giving the pharmaceutical industry another knob to turn to create all new formulations that otherwise wouldn’t exist,” Bruey said.

In a sense, Varda’s space missions fit perfectly into the existing logistics chain in the pharmaceutical industry, where a molecule might be synthesized in San Diego, formulated in New Jersey, dosed in Ireland and packaged in North Carolina.

“If we can say, hey, shipping to space is just shipping, then we fit in that logistics chain of the pharma industry,” Bruey said. “Pay no attention to the rocket behind the curtain. Instead of using FedEx we use SpaceX.”

Varda’s defensible strategy forces the startup to operate more like a pharmaceutical company than a space company. Varda uses the same intellectual property and patent procedures common among pharmaceutical firms to protect the molecule geometry of the active ingredients it uses.

Bruey, an engineer and spacecraft operator at SpaceX, co-founded his company with Delian Asparouhov, a venture capitalist at Founders Fund. The company opened its doors in El Segundo in 2021 and has since raised $329 million from the likes of Peter Thiel, Founders Fund and Khosla Ventures.

Its first mission contained a payload of ritonavir, an HIV/AIDS medication. According to an X post by Asparouhov, “Them space drugs cooked real good.”