Final frontier for meds? UK startup sends drug-making into space

Key Takeaways

• Onboard a SpaceX flight last week was a remarkable piece of cargo – a hi-tech box destined for the International Space Station to grow ultra-pure protein crystals, with the aim of producing self-injected cancer drugs.
• A British startup, BioOrbit, has developed the drug-crystallisation technology at its labs in London and launched Bo E, a compact unit the size of a microwave, on the 15 May rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
• The unit will stay in orbit for about six weeks where the effective weightlessness, or microgravity, enables pharmaceutical compounds to crystallise into pure, highly stable structures that enable drug formulations not achievable on Earth.
• Once back on terra firma, these crystals can be turned into cancer medications that patients can keep in a fridge and inject themselves at home or at work, instead of having to go to hospital to have immunotherapies infused intravenously over several hours.
• The drugs also have a longer shelf life.