New mission will test making cancer drugs in space

Orbital pharma and re-entry startup Varda Space Industries launched a new mission Monday to test microgravity's effects on an innovative cancer treatment.Why it matters: Developing medicine in space, away from the pesky influence of Earth's gravity, could unlock better treatments — though commercial scale for "space meds" is still a moonshot.Driving the news: The California company's W-7 spacecraft launched into orbit at TKTIME from Cape Canaveral, Florida on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare mission.Varda is testing whether the key ingredient in next-gen cancer medicines called PROTACs will crystalize differently in microgravity than it does on Earth.That could make the treatment easier for recipients' bodies to absorb.What they're saying: "We are exploring a new class of cancer drugs that are very innovative, but have problems with dissolving in the body," Varda chief strategy officer Michael Reilly tells Axios."So the premise is that in space we can create unique crystals that have superior dissolution properties, and therefore can be far more effective and perhaps safer as well."Reilly adds that, for missions like this one, the company can create "seed quantities" in space, then ret…

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