--- title: A plan to make drugs in orbit is going commercial description: Varda Space Industries has signed a commercial deal with United Therapeutics to launch pharmaceutical drugs into orbit and study how they crystallize in... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/a-plan-to-make-drugs-in-orbit-is-going-commercial-m1n4b4tlz twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: A plan to make drugs in orbit is going commercial | daily.dev og:description: Varda Space Industries has signed a commercial deal with United Therapeutics to launch pharmaceutical drugs into orbit and study how they crystallize in... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/a-plan-to-make-drugs-in-orbit-is-going-commercial-m1n4b4tlz og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/M1n4B4Tlz.png og:image:alt: A plan to make drugs in orbit is going commercial og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # A plan to make drugs in orbit is going commercial **[MIT Technology Review](https://daily.dev/sources/technologyreview)** · 7 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Varda Space Industries has signed a commercial deal with United Therapeutics to launch pharmaceutical drugs into orbit and study how they crystallize in microgravity. The goal is to discover new polymorphs — crystal forms with potentially improved stability or other valuable properties — that cannot be produced under Earth's gravity. Varda uses SpaceX Falcon 9 launches to send small capsules into orbit, conduct experiments, and return them via high-speed reentry to the Australian outback. While actual space manufacturing remains aspirational, drugs are among the few products valuable enough per kilogram to make the economics viable. The collaboration is expected to launch early next year, and if successful, could represent the first commercial product manufactured in space and sold on Earth. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. 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