During the course, King was part of a team tasked with identifying research that could be conducted in space that could have the greatest impact on humanity. Her team came up with the concept of crystallizing drugs in microgravity. The International Space Station was loaded with data that suggested it could “absolutely revolutionize cancer treatment,” King said. “This needs to be fully realized and the time is now.”
BioOrbit, which King founded in 2023, plans to scale up and commercialize this type of drug production in space. After securing funding from the European Space Agency, it plans to test the process on the International Space Station early next year to ensure it works. A second flight is planned for the second half of 2025, ideally with a pharmaceutical partner.
King is not the first person to send drugs into space to reap the benefits of microgravity. Major pharmaceutical companies are also taking it seriously. bristol myers squib and Merck They have been conducting research to develop and manufacture pharmaceuticals in space for many years. “What makes BioOrbit special is that we are trying to optimize it,” says Lee Sheng To, an assistant professor at the University of Nottingham who studies celestial medicine. Mr. King hopes to expand it to a commercial scale.
But there are also obstacles. There are long queues to secure space on rockets to transport material to the ISS, and of course the costs are high. Regulation is also a hurdle. Do Earth’s rules and regulations apply to outer space? What jurisdiction applies if one of BioOrbit’s medicines harms a patient? “But people are turning a blind eye to how to do quality assurance,” says To. This is what she is researching. She proposed a healthy version of the Outer Space Treaty, a set of principles that influenced international space law.
Ms. King is happy with the team’s adventure, acting as a guinea pig for how this all works, as she hopes things will work out. “Microgravity has many benefits for life science research, drug discovery, cancer research, and more that we don’t yet know about,” King says.
Her BioOrbit’s ultimate goal is to have a permanent facility in space solely for science, research, and manufacturing. A pharmaceutical factory in a gray, barren business park may soon feel a little more extraterrestrial. At some point, perhaps a lot of your drag will take a little trip into space.
This article appears in the May/June 2024 issue of the magazine. British magazine “WIRED”.
