Medicine Made in Space: The 2035 Vision

Transcript

From the video captions, split by chapter. Timestamps link to that moment on YouTube. Corrections are marked inline.

0:00 What could orbit make by 2035?

Picture twenty thirty-five. The International Space Station has been retired. Starships fly often, and some carry capsules full of drug experiments that come back to Earth weeks later. That's not a prediction.

It's what several companies say they're building toward, and SpaceX wants to be the road they travel on. First, today's reality. No approved drug is made in space. And SpaceX doesn't make drugs.

It builds the rockets and the return capsule. Other companies bring the labs and the factories. This is Bet The Decade. Today: what orbit has already taught drugmakers, why twenty thirty is a turning point, who is booked to fly, which medicines could benefit, and how big this option could be for SpaceX.

[Personal holdings statement omitted on this site. The author may hold shares in companies discussed. See Disclosure.] This is not financial advice.

0:54 What has orbit already proved?

On Earth, warm liquid rises and heavy crystals sink. In orbit, crystals float, and they can grow smaller and more uniform. Merck tested this with its cancer antibody pembrolizumab, sold as Keytruda. The samples flew to the space station on a SpaceX cargo mission.

In orbit, the crystals came out in one uniform size, about thirty-nine microns. On the ground, the same recipe gave two sizes, about thirteen and about one hundred two microns. Then Merck recreated the effect on Earth, with rotating mixers and controlled temperatures. Space was the lab, not the factory.

Varda went further, with its own capsules. Its first one grew a specific crystal form of the HIV drug ritonavir in orbit. It landed in Utah in February twenty twenty-four, and the crystals came back stable. And a viral post this week said Starfall grows drug crystals with no crew aboard.

Not yet. Both test flights launched on Falcon 9, but the first drug research mission is planned for twenty twenty-eight.

2:07 Why is 2030 a turning point?

Now the future. NASA plans to retire the space station in twenty thirty, and SpaceX is building the vehicle that will guide it down. After that, research in orbit moves to commercial stations and to free-flying capsules. In its filing with the F A A, SpaceX stated the goal for Starfall: to help create a self-sustaining commercial market for manufacturing in space.

Its Starfall page says the capsule will launch on Starship, at a cadence the market has never had. Each Starfall is a flat disc, about three point one meters across. It can bring back about one tonne of cargo, with one kilowatt of power and a Starlink data link.

2:52 Can the launch math work?

The cost trend is the engine. A NASA analysis put the historic cost of reaching orbit at about eighteen thousand five hundred dollars per kilogram. The first Falcon 9 brought that to about two thousand seven hundred. SpaceX says Starship could eventually cut that by ninety-nine percent or more.

That's a goal, not a result. Starship reached orbit for the first time this fall, and paying Starfall flights on it are planned from twenty twenty-eight. Here's my read, and it's an opinion. For a drug worth a lot per gram, the ride up isn't the main problem.

Coming back down safely, often, and on schedule, is. That's exactly what Starfall is designed to sell.

3:37 Who is booked to fly?

The first bookings are in. Redwire's SpaceMD unit booked a dedicated Starfall flight for twenty twenty-eight, with up to thirty-two drug crystal labs. A Luxembourg company, Space Cargo Unlimited, plans to fly a one-tonne factory the same year. And SpaceX says it has signed three commercial Starfall missions.

Varda, which builds its own capsules, plans to scale too. It launched four times this year. It has seven flights booked for next year, and ten for twenty twenty-eight. Its stated aim is to move from demonstrations to production in orbit.

4:16 Which medicines could benefit?

So which medicines could benefit? First, antibody drugs, like Keytruda. They're often given as an IV drip in a clinic. Uniform crystals could help turn some of them into a simple shot under the skin.

Varda says antibodies are a main target. Second, drugs where the crystal form matters. The same molecule can pack into different shapes, and that can change how well it dissolves. Varda's newest capsule is testing exactly that, with a cancer drug candidate that tends to dissolve poorly.

Third, research itself. NASA says crystals grown in orbit can be larger and better ordered, which can reveal a protein's structure and help design new drugs. Redwire's labs have crystallized forty-five compounds on the station so far. And Redwire's plan for SpaceMD is to grow seed crystals in orbit, then sell or license them to drugmakers, who use them back on Earth.

That's a model where orbit is part of the supply chain, without a whole factory up there.

5:23 How big could this be for SpaceX?

So how big is this for SpaceX? In its IPO prospectus, SpaceX lists in-orbit manufacturing as a future market, one that doesn't exist today. It leaves it out of its market-size estimate. And Starfall isn't broken out in the numbers.

SpaceX's whole space segment, launches included, brought in about one point eight billion dollars last quarter, out of about fourteen point six billion in total. So, in my view, for SpaceX this is an option, not a pillar. If orbital pharma grows, SpaceX can earn on the launch, the return, and the Starlink link, no matter which drug company wins. [Personal holdings statement omitted on this site. The author may hold shares in companies discussed. See Disclosure.]

6:10 To be fair, what could go wrong?

Now the other side. First, like Merck, companies may learn the recipe in orbit, then make the drug on Earth. Second, the plan leans on Starship, which is still being tested. Third, Varda flies its own capsules, so Starfall has competition.

And fourth, no drug made in space has been approved yet. Every date in this video could slip.

6:34 What could 2035 look like?

Here are three ways twenty thirty-five could look. This is my opinion, not a forecast. Cautious: orbit stays a lab. Companies fly research, then make drugs on Earth.

Middle: a few high-value drugs use an orbital step, like seed crystals or a special formulation. Bold: Starships fly capsules on a regular schedule, and orbit becomes a routine part of the supply chain. The lesson I take, and it's my opinion: when a new industry is still forming, the company that owns the road can get paid in all three cases. Again, this is not financial advice.

[Personal holdings statement omitted on this site. The author may hold shares in companies discussed. See Disclosure.] Do your own research. Which version of twenty thirty-five do you think wins? Tell me in the comments.

And for how SpaceX connects to the rest of the Musk companies, watch this one next.