Startups & Business News

Inside the Space Manufacturing Race: How Varda’s Latest Funding Fuels the Future of Space Medicine

futureTEKnow
July 11, 2025

The landscape of space manufacturing is rapidly evolving, and few companies are pushing the boundaries quite like Varda Space Industries. In a recent interview, Varda’s CEO Will Bruey and co-founder Delian Asparouhov offered a rare glimpse into their ambitious plans following a major Series C funding round. Their mission? To revolutionize pharmaceutical manufacturing in low Earth orbit—and, in the process, reshape how we think about both medicine and aerospace technology.

“Microgravity allows us to create new drug formulations that otherwise would be impossible to create on Earth. That’s the whole purpose of Varda.” — Will Bruey

Why Space? The Science Behind Microgravity Manufacturing

At the heart of Varda’s strategy is the unique environment of microgravity. On Earth, gravity limits the ways molecules can interact, often restricting the complexity or purity of pharmaceutical compounds. In orbit, however, microgravity enables the creation of medicines with properties and effectiveness that simply can’t be replicated on the ground. This opens the door to entirely new classes of drugs—a game-changer for biotech and healthcare.

Building the Pipeline: From Lab to Orbit and Back

With fresh capital, Varda is expanding its biologics lab to prepare and vet drug formulations before sending them to space. The company is moving away from relying on third-party launch providers and is now internalizing its manufacturing and launch cadence. This shift means:

More frequent launches: Varda plans to quadruple its flight rate next year, with ambitions to double that cadence annually.
Full control over the supply chain: Owning more of the process allows for greater flexibility and innovation in biopharmaceutical production.
Lower costs and higher reliability: Operating smaller, non-human-rated reentry vehicles keeps costs down and increases mission frequency.

The Reentry Challenge: Bringing Space-Made Drugs Home

One of the most technically demanding aspects of Varda’s operation is returning payloads from orbit. Their spacecraft reenters Earth’s atmosphere at Mach 25—about 25 times the speed of sound—creating a spectacular plasma trail as it streaks across the sky. This high-speed reentry is not just a spectacle; it’s a crucial phase for safely delivering space-manufactured pharmaceuticals back to Earth.

Dual-Use Technology: Defense and Beyond

Varda’s technology isn’t just about medicine. The U.S. Department of Defense and other government agencies are keenly interested in the company’s capabilities. Varda’s reentry vehicles function as hypersonic wind tunnels, allowing the military to test new materials, sensors, and navigation systems under extreme conditions—faster and more affordably than traditional methods. This helps the U.S. keep pace with, and potentially surpass, near-peer competitors in hypersonic technology.

The Real Competition: Cadence, Not Just Cost

Unlike larger players such as SpaceX or Boeing, Varda’s vehicles are smaller, higher cadence, and not designed for human passengers. This makes them uniquely suited for frequent, cost-effective missions focused on manufacturing and research, rather than transporting astronauts. The main challenge ahead? Scaling up launch frequency to meet the growing demand from the pharmaceutical industry, which cares less about the journey and more about the quality and novelty of the drugs delivered.

Infrastructure Enables Innovation

Varda’s rise is made possible by advances in reusable rocket technology, notably SpaceX’s Falcon 9. The availability of regular, affordable launches has created a new infrastructure layer—much like the mobile app store did for Uber and Airbnb—enabling entirely new business models in space.

Looking Ahead: Who Benefits?

In the long term, pharmaceutical companies stand to gain the most from Varda’s innovations, integrating space-manufactured drugs into the global supply chain. Meanwhile, the defense sector benefits from rapid, real-world testing of next-generation aerospace technologies. With its fleet of small, high-frequency reentry vehicles, Varda is poised to serve both markets as a critical infrastructure provider for the new space economy.

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