152. Crystals in the Cosmos: Varda Rewrites Drug Formulation in Microgravity

Ep 152. Mike & Adrian

[00:00:00] TEASER

Adrian Why we're all here is we see this industrial future where the space layer is another environment for manufacturing and its routine and boring. That's, we get excited about things that become boring.

Karl Hey Ram, what's going on?

Erum It's going, Carl. Wow. I can't believe we're in full swing in Q4 2025. We're hitting our stride. It's been so much fun here at Messaging Lab and of course the Grow Everything podcast. And before we know it, it's gonna be 2026, but let's take things slow. There's been so much fun happening. What's going on in your world?

Karl I mean, look, fourth quarter is always a crazy quarter. Everybody's trying to get a lot of work done and we see it with our clients. We see it with the people who we're talking to here on the podcast. Everyone is in this sprint towards the end of the year. We're recording this a couple weeks before Halloween, which is my favorite holiday. So I'm very excited about Halloween and ~~um, ~~we just had a celebration with a bunch of our friends in Brooklyn to celebrate the hundredth. 50th [00:01:00] episode of Grow Everything. So that was very exciting. It was good to see a lot of our friends there, a lot of people who've been on the podcast, some people who we wanna get on the podcast and yeah, it's gonna year well be over before we know it.

Erum Yeah, I, do love the fact that we live in an area where there are a lot of people in the biotech space that we've known for quite some time, and we can have these in-person. Hangout sessions. We went to a really cool bar in Cobble Hill. Is that Cobble Hill?

Karl Yeah. I don't know if that's cobble, I think it's actually more Borum Hill, but I might be wrong. It's basically downtown Brooklyn. Yeah,

Erum in downtown Brooklyn. It was. Perfect. Fall day and fall. Yes. Halloween's around the corner. And so we have an episode coming up where we are following on our report on reports. Going deep into one of those reports called the Graveyard Report, so perfect for Halloween, and we're gonna talk about failure. Failure is very scary to some people, but from [00:02:00] scientists perspective, it's actually data that can help us get to a solution and to understand how our world works faster. It doesn't work that way. Works another way.

Karl Yeah, I'm super excited, uh, because the person who's gonna come and talk about the graveyard of biotech Failures has been on the podcast before and we had a really great conversation with her and that report is really good. And if you haven't heard our report on reports, just go back one or two episodes because we just recorded it. Okay.

Erum So today's episode's going to be really cool. My favorite topics, space Biotech, which. Wow. If you guys have not listened to our episodes in the past, you're gonna have to go back. We had some great guests. Carl, you wanna rattle off our guests?

Karl Yeah, , we have had Elizabeth Reynolds, um, who is investing in space biotech. We've had Kate Rubins an astronaut. She is one of the people who's been the longest up in space. She might be third or fourth in terms of [00:03:00] time spent in space. We've also had Erica de Benedictus who's working on microbial chassis for Mars. Chris Mason, who's a researcher here in New York City, who was testing astronauts for how space impacts their body. We've also had Kyle Landry who is creating. Ingredients based on space, exposed microbes. So we've had a good group of space, uh, biotech people on the podcast. And this today's episode, uh, with the team from Varda is someone who we've been wanting to talk to for a long time because a few years ago, Elliot Hershberg, who's also been on the podcast, wrote about, um, Barta and what they're doing and will put that link in the show notes.

Erum Yeah, I mean, I wish I read that before we record the episode because, ~~um, ~~it was very interesting because, um, I had made an assumption of how their company operates, and you guys will hear that. But I just love the fact that they're looking at physics and how microgravity [00:04:00] can influence, um, how different molecules are made.

Karl Yeah, so Varda is basically using microgravity, what you get in the low earth environment. And uh, they're a very ambitious company. It's a space company, it's a biotech company rolled into one, and then they've got like a hypersonic testing service, which I don't think they got into in the podcast. But one of the things that is really interesting about Varda is they're addressing this idea that. The way that you manufacture drugs can really have an impact on the way they interact with your body. So specifically one of the things we're working on is polymorphism in pharma, where differences in symmetry and structures of crystals lead to very different changes in solubility and bioavailability. And if that heavy and over your head, don't worry, guys are bottom line. Know Vardas a super interesting company and we get really deep into it really fast. So we wanted to make sure that you listeners have [00:05:00] a little bit of context before we get into the interview.

Erum So we'll have Michael Riley, chief Strategy Officer, and Adrian ra, chief Science Officer of Varda. Enjoyed the episode. INTWEVIEW

Karl Right, Michael and Adrian from Varda. We are so pleased to have you guys on the Grow Everything podcast.

Mike Great to be here. Great to be here.

Karl Thank you. So let's do a little bit of background. The two of you have. Very different paths. Michael, you come from and global health. Adrian, you come from material science and semiconductors. What drew you guys to the idea of manufacturing medicines in orbit and when did that shift from being a science fiction idea to actually being something strategic that people got interested in?

Adrian Go first? Yeah, so I, got involved with Barta 'cause I had known wills from my time at Cornell. So when he told me about Barta. I was very excited for the opportunity to work with him and a strong team. And the bonus was you were working on advanced manufacturing, which is really hard to pass up in [00:06:00] a startup setting. This space piece I see as the tool to get to the result. What I get excited about is enabling something that's better than could have been done before. And for the pharma, when I first started, we were still figuring out what are the best applications, and my first task was to go map those out. The more we learned about pharma, the more we got excited. That became the focus of my role here at Varda.

Mike And for me, I've been involved with pharmaceuticals a long time, biotech and leading drug development teams, a place like Amgen and Baxter and Sanofi. And in fact, one of my teams at Amgen that I led had an experiment on ISS years ago. This was a bone drug, OPG. And so I've been tracking things and when I saw the progress that the company had made, I had to find out more. And that's really what drew me in.

Erum That's amazing. And you heard from Michael. So Michael is the Chief Strategy Officer, and then, um, Adrian, you are the Chief Science Officer. Thank you so much for your work. I'm been a big fan of space biotech ever since I went to sit via beta a few years ago, and they have a specific track at this conference Um, That is [00:07:00] dedicated to space biotech. I'm like, how much stuff is going on in space regarding biology and wow, I was blown away. And ~~um, ~~ we've had different guests on this podcast that have different experience from being an astronaut to, being scientists, like, um, doing astronaut genomics. Um, and we're going to link all of the episodes that we, um, had with all of our friends that work in your industry. But there's a statement that I want you guys to think about is that microgravity is the new clean room. Can you help listeners visualize what that means? What happens to a drug created in orbit compared to one form tear on earth? Yeah,

Adrian That's a great question. I think about a little differently. When I think about clean rooms, I think about environments that are free of particles and pristine. We're very good at making those clean environments here on earth. We can create very, very low vacuums. We can filter out particles, I think about lower earth orbit and the opportunity as a way of using the [00:08:00] absence of gravity to do different things. So rather than thinking about it as a clean room, I think about it as this environment where you're reducing gravity and things are able to move in a way that's different than they typically move here on Earth. ~~So I think about it slightly differently and ~~or to visualize it. Just to imagine that things don't fall down anymore, and what can that enable, what can that unlock as you're mixing things together and stirring, how is that gonna proceed differently in that, uh, uh, weightlessness environment?

Karl That is so great. Michael, you had also worked at the Gates Foundation and, uh, biotech company called Integrity Bio, which was centered around expanding access to medicines, which is what the Gates Foundation is well known for. How did that perspective influence your approach to making space enabled pharmaceuticals equitable and globally relevant?

Mike I worked for, at the Gates foundation, I worked for a group called The Accelerator, and we were working on breakthrough technologies much as we're doing here. And one of the critical items was how do we make these [00:09:00] accessible to people around the world? And number one probably was bringing down the cost, obviously. that's something that we've really been focused on at Varda. And then the second is targeting it to the right kinds of opportunities. New technologies have to find their niche. And um, likewise, I think here at the Gates Foundation, figuring out how to take microgravity and find the right application so it reaches widespread audiences is really interesting. So one of the first drugs that we had up in orbit. Was Ritonavir, which people know better as Paxlovid. So this was used for COVID-19 and widespread use. So it just goes to show that you can have, um, applications that are very widespread, but likewise, even at the Gates Foundation sometimes, that we looked at opportunities in smaller markets. So it may be that we explore some small markets as well. Enable the technology to move forward for wider, um, public good.

Erum Yeah, that's incredible. And I, um, I always love talking about the [00:10:00] application areas because we do go deep in the tech, and that's also very interesting and I definitely wanna circle back to that, um, to get this grounding of your background and just both of you. Very impressive. Um, Adrian, you've spent years studying atomic scale materials and now you're experimenting with microgravity. What parallels do you see between the nanoscale precision of semiconductor engineering and the molecular behaviors you're observing in orbit? Like where do you see those parallels?

Adrian Yeah, there's a lot of great analogies and when it comes down to uh, making materials manufacturing that both semiconductor industry and pharma especially sation processes are at this confluence of top down and bottom up. The chemistry and the molecules, they're gonna behave. They're gonna move around, and at the same time, there's a goal. We're trying to make things with the quality and precision that's required to make a medicine safe. It's the same thing when you're making chips. You need everything to be reliable and consistent. And studying atomic scale materials, you understand how [00:11:00] molecules move and behave, and there's no way to force a molecule to go where you want it to go. It's gonna go , where the molecule needs to go to minimize the energy. So you learn those fundamentals of how molecules move, how things behave. The fusion kinetics, crystallization growth, and being able to apply those processes in pharma has been very interesting and exciting. The other great thing about Varda is we're a confluence of multiple industries. So we're bringing advanced manufacturing from aerospace, semiconductor, applying it to pharma and really pushing the frontiers of what we can make space helps us do things that weren't easy to do here on Earth before. And with the cost curves coming down, we're starting to be able to do that with the scale and capacity that can be transformative for patients here on earth.

Erum Wow. It's amazing. I do have a follow-up question. So a lot of this is about, ~~um. ~~synthesizing, creating new molecules, is that correct? In the beginning stages, you're looking at new, uh, shapes of molecules that would be therapeutics for humans.

Adrian We're [00:12:00] focused on a slightly different area. I think there are some great applications for synthesis that we should explore as things progress, but we're focused on taking molecules that have already been chemically synthesized and we're controlling how those molecules come together into crystals. So we take already synthesized chemicals or already made biologics, and then we're changing the way that they crystallize in space so that we can make different and better dosage forms for use here on Earth.

Karl Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a perfect segue into the question I was gonna ask because one of your core ideas at Varda is that it's physics, not just chemistry. That changes the way we make medicines. And, ~~um, ~~what kinds of molecules or therapeutic classes do you think could benefit the most from shifting , their manufacturing into microgravity?

Mike Well, I think one of the exciting things is that it, potentially cuts across a wide number of, um, molecular classes. Things like small molecules, the size of aspirin, or large ones like [00:13:00] antibodies. Um, we've sent a variety of things up. We're gonna continue to do the land-based experiments in order to look at a wide number of potential applications. And as the science plays out and we understand where this technology works best, we can then reach out with that data and partner with companies to take their molecules forward, whether they're molecules that are already out on the market or ones that are further back that are running into problems. And, um. One area in particular that a lot of organizations might not know about us is on the large molecule side. So this is antibodies and, um, proteins and enzymes, um, classes, molecules that at times are very tough to formulate and have in convenient forms. So we've really been building out our capability in that area and would love to partner with companies to explore how their molecules might be applied in these conditions.

Erum Yeah, exciting. ~~Um, ~~I'm just really interested [00:14:00] in this intersection of aerospace and biopharma. I mean, those are completely different fields with different cultures, languages, risk profiles. What has it taken to get those two worlds to truly collaborate? , How do we get everyone to play Nice.

Mike I think that one of the neat things coming in into the aerospace side recently is just how hopeful and focused on the future both of these groups are. These are two groups that focus on solving problems. They go about it in different ways. Um, I'm struck working now with a lot of aerospace engineers just the talent, attention to detail, focus on short timelines. Um. Really a can-do attitude, um, uh, amongst them. Whereas like on the pharmaceutical and scientific side, these are much longer timelines. We do experimental work, we don't know what the result is gonna be. So there's a lot of emphasis on collaboratively designing, uh, trials [00:15:00] that explore a wide number of opportunities. So now we have the opportunity to mash these two together, and I think the opportunity is that our. Engineering colleagues are driving hard to create the capability on a regular basis, on a reliable, low cost basis, to then let our scientists explore all the ways in which this could be applied. So, um, everyone's focused on the same goal and everyone's a very, uh, result oriented individual here. I dunno if you have anything to add. Yeah. Yeah. I think very fortunate with the team, , it takes, uh, a good amount of patience to learn all of the different languages that we have to speak of rda. But I think the best part of it has been how strongly everybody has embraced the different approaches of working. And everyone is here because they want to work on something that hasn't been done before. And so that common thread, uh, and , having completed a couple of missions, that definitely brings the team closer together. Succeeding together , has been a great way of getting the two cultures and the , two ways of working to really mash into [00:16:00] one increasingly well-oiled machine. That's so cool.

Karl Adrian, one of the things that I've read that you said is you describe Varda as turning science fiction into process engineering. Could you share a moment, maybe a specific experiment or data point where you realized, hey, we're actually doing this.

Adrian Well, for me it was seeing the first capsule get assembled, having joined early. It started off as PowerPoints and ideas and sketches, but when you see the rivets going in and you help put some of the rivets in yourself, you realize , I'm touching a spacecraft right now. This is gonna be in space. Then, you know, a couple months later you look up at the sky and you realize, oh, the satellite's up there right now. That is a very surreal feeling and those are the kinds of moments that make you feel this is very much real. It's not just an idea anymore.

Mike And even as we talk right here, we have one up in orbit right now. So,

Erum yeah. Yeah. What is that one doing and what's the mission there for that one?

Adrian that vehicle is a demonstration of a [00:17:00] series of capabilities. We've built, um, an end-to-end capability. So we built the capsule and we now build the satellite bus, which we're demonstrating for the first time on the current mission. We also build our own process equipment, and the current mission has the next generation. Equipment that does liquid handling and expands the range of pharmaceutical processes that we can support and on board. We have a molecule. I don't believe we've announced it yet, but we'll publish the results when they're ready. We're continuing to push the frontiers of our understanding of how microgravity influences, crystallization processes and really pushing what we can make and the position that we can achieve.

Erum Okay, so this is like a lab in space. Space Lab 11. Space, space Lab.

Karl Very cool. Yeah,

Erum that was really cool. Soon,

Mike soon to be a manufacturing plant in space, so Yes, yes. That's the goal here is that in years past, certainly there's a long history of experimentation in space, and I think what's exciting here is that moving that into the manufacturing realm is, um, something that's, uh, a real opportunity to take these [00:18:00] experiments and move them into drugs and into people.

Erum Yeah. Let's talk about that. We are big fans of Biomanufacturing. We have been here on earth. We're excited to see it go into space. Um, so what makes you confident that space-based manufacturing isn't just a novelty but a true platform for pharmaceutical innovation?

Mike There are so many things that , I've been in the business a while and they seem like, um, uh, novelties or just science fiction at first and have passed into regular use. I think of one of my colleagues that invented a molecule that now we call a bispecific antibody. And they attacked two different targets. And at the time he was sort of ridiculed by management saying that this was a Franken molecule. Now it's one of the leading ways in which we address, um, oncology problems. So I think, um, likewise here, I think when I took a look at it, I was so excited to see when I really dug in that we're already able to address some problems from a volume. How much drug can we bring up and back and is that gonna [00:19:00] solve problems today? We're already there for some, um, diseases. We're doing it at a cost that already in some areas makes sense and saves money and addresses the problem, and it's only gonna get better. Um, the whole team here is really, each flight is not a repeat of the flight before, as Adrian said, it's learning new things. It's lowering the cost, it's expanding the number of, um, molecules that are addressed. So I'm very hopeful that this will be a standard part of. Formulation. And I think formulation continues to be a tough area for companies. Every company does a lot of outsourcing so that they can help turn their molecules into medicines. And, um, I think we too are helping companies who have discovered these amazing new molecules that have great efficacy and helping them make them more accessible for people.

Karl Yeah. I'm glad, you said that, Michael, because I wanted to ask you, . Every one of these missions brings you new lessons, and I'm sure [00:20:00] different challenges, but is there something you could share about a time where maybe something didn't go as failed, a failed test launch delay, or some surprising result that it ended up teaching you or the team something fundamental about working in space?

Mike Adrian's been here longer, so I'll let him tell stories there.

Adrian There's a ton that we've learned. We're very data driven. It's kind of this idea of. The process engineering mindset and the manufacturing mindset. We wanna study sensitivities, how things depend on each other. And for us, understanding what gravity does is always the big question mark. So we have gone to great lengths. We built this two meter diameter centrifuge, this giant thing that spins around so that we can simulate increased gravity because here on earth, there's no way to reduce gravity. Our only way to test slow gravity is to go and do it in space. But here on Earth, , we are constantly testing processes and we're constantly finding new surprises. Early on, we were trying to figure out, okay, , how do we keep things [00:21:00] uniform, but how do we still see the effects of gravity in our processes? And what surprised us was how strong gravity effects can be, even in surge systems. So some of our work that we publish in crystal growth and design shows that in, even when you're staring at 800 RPM. That's a system where everyone just assumes everything's perfectly mixed. There's no gravity effects here. What we learned is on the, as we were running these processes on the centrifuge, was that gravity was shifting the results, and so we were able to watch the particle size move up and down as we were varying the effect of gravity level. So it really changed the way that we think about how big of a role gravity has on crystallization processes and is strongly influencing how we design our experiments in space.

Erum Yeah. And you mentioned a few times that this is going to help lower the cost of the crystallization process. What point of the process becomes cheaper from going into space? Because it's, that does sound like an expensive thing, like, oh, and I know the reusable rockets and that's becoming, you know, more, uh, [00:22:00] accessible I guess you can say. But can you tell us like, what is it, it's blowing like less energy. Is it faster what's saving costs? Compared to what's happening on Earth.

Mike I think when I mentioned it, it's that we're trying to solve problems and if the problems are drugs that can't be made into convenient subcutaneous shots or drugs that can't, um, be stable over time and they're not solvable by other means, or those means can be expensive at times or clunky for patients, um, we're able to solve those problems in a cost efficient way. Perhaps better than you can do on Earth. And so that's, really the advantage here. These are crystallization questions when it comes to small, uh, large molecules, people aren't even using crystallization right now. So this is really an enabling technology that allows you to deliver a cost-effective kind of solution,

Erum because crystallization is expensive to do on earth because of gravity.

Adrian It's a great question just to, Add to [00:23:00] Michael's point, I think he laid it out pretty nicely. The way to think about it is, um, medicines are expensive and there's lots of unmet needs, and we go to great lengths here on Earth to address those. That drives healthcare costs up. There's a need for better technologies, especially in the formulation space with all of the different types of molecules. You have, bispecifics antibodies, RNA, all kinds of things coming out. One of the things that gets very difficult is how do you make formulations that can be delivered to the patient in a convenient, cost effective way? So where Varda steps in is we go to those areas where a solution is not yet cost effective. We have a technology going to space. Sounds expensive. It's quickly becoming not expensive, and we're applying that to that expensive healthcare issue. So we always add some costs because we have to go to space and back. But versus the magnitude of the problem, we reduce the overall spend that everybody has to absorb.

Erum It's amazing. We talk to Chris Mason and he talks about [00:24:00] generational ships and like going out in space. Now we're gonna get to like the, big vision type of uh, questions here, and I know right now focus on manufacturing. Um, but. Have you been approached or have you been thinking about, or just a thought experiment of helping, um, astronauts develop drugs in space for long, um, missions? Because those drugs might have an expiration date of a, you know, couple of years or months in space where something happens to them and they need to be able to manufacture, molecules in space , now that you guys are kind of tinkering. Whether from Varda or your own, you can just, you know, disclose how you wanna answer this. 'cause like, I always get in trouble for getting off the company's storyline, but share with us like your thoughts on drugs for astronauts to manufacture drugs for astronauts in space.

Mike I wanna make clear that we're not starting from scratch in space, so we're not sending up raw ingredients, making the drug and then bring it back. We have the molecule in hand already. It's not [00:25:00] in its optimal form and we're sending it up. So I think first and foremost, we're trying to make this a realistic part of drug development for everybody on earth or someday in orbit. And if we can make, for instance, molecules that are more stable, , they'll not only benefit, um, astronauts on a long mission, but they're the kind of things that you can send to. Um, developing countries and there'll be ambient temperature stable, and that means they'll be able to reach people who are not able to be reached in a cost effective way. So I think, um, the benefits that we're working on will benefit everyone. I don't think we're space medicine oriented in particular. I think, we're leveraging low earth orbit to bring advantages to people on Earth, and I think there'll be spillover into space medicine. Thoughts?

Adrian Yeah. In the early days of the Space Station, some of the vocal criticism as well, what are we doing for people here on earth? What are we doing for patients [00:26:00] with disease? And that, sentiment is built into the synthesis of art and what the organ, we don't exist just for space. We exist to make life better here on earth, expand the economic bounds of humankind. So we're always thinking about the patient. And that's you and me and everybody else here. And that's our focus at Barta.

Karl So, you know, based on all that I'd love to get a sense in terms of like, who's the ideal customer? A pharmaceutical company. They've got like a new molecule they've discovered. They're having a hard time formulating it. I mean, Michael, you mentioned specifically, um., Having a formulation that's gonna work without refrigeration for developing countries. But at what point does a, pharma or biopharma go, you know, what we need to look at Varda as an alternative for the formulation challenges that we can't really meet here on Earth?

Mike Well, I think the first thing is we need to show them and to show ourselves what this technology can do. And even though we have a couple decades of experience on, um, the International Space Station. I think we are, uh, focused [00:27:00] right now on expanding the r and d exploration of what, uh, microgravity can do. And with that we'll be able to go to people in the jobs that I used to have and present them with, um, features of this technology that might help them move their drugs forward. Um, and most importantly, I think is a timeline that is reliable. That as they think about that investment that's gonna stretch out over the next 10 years, they know that we'll be able to produce the kind of quantities they need to meet their, um, target patient populations. So we're doing those two things at once. We're establishing all the ways in which these are useful, and we're just learning the breadth of that right now. And every molecule is a little bit different. They all have their. Own personalities. And so we're looking at groups of molecules and trying to understand where this is most effective. And at the same time, we're setting up a reliable [00:28:00] cadence and uh, uh, timeline and manufacturing system so that drug developers can look at it and say, you know what? I'd rather use this Varda technology than the alternatives out there.

Erum Mm-hmm. Yeah. And you mentioned, 10 years into the future and. , The process will be up and running. There'll be volume manufacturing, the molecules that already exist, you optimize them. Um, but tell us a little bit, help us visionary, what does the world look like for medicine, global supply chains, and the role for space in everyday life you're on earth.

Mike I think we really wanna have microgravity as a part of the drug discovery process. In every regard, we'd like it to be a screening tool so that people consider it early rather than post-launch for a product. We want other innovative tools to incorporate gravity as part of them. Maybe, , artificial intelligence driven drug design, um, is something that now could use this [00:29:00] particular force as something in designing new drugs. And then we want during that period for it to be get into people. I think in the next 10 years. We'll have this drugs in people and manufactured in orbit. And, um, with that, I think it'll be an exciting period of time and really I think that'll be success towards the end of the 10 years to have this established throughout the drug development

Adrian process. Yeah, you can think about, when was the first modem installed in somebody's home and the proliferation of the internet? It's like, when is the first commercial reentry capsule? Nine. Well, Varda is kind of the first unmanned one, ~~uh, ~~that is able to land on land for the third company to do it. And if you go out 10 years, how fast it's gonna go from the first one to now, this is industry. This is just shipping, go up and back, just the same way we ship things across the world today. Then the, capacity that's gonna be available is gonna be so large that the way we [00:30:00] think about space is really turning upside down right now. It's not this place where everything has to be tiny and miniaturized and you only do it once. It's gonna be routine all the time. Send anything you need, it will go up. It will come down so that the paradigm is gonna be very different from the way people used to think about space in the past decades. I definitely get excited to some extent. When I hear , you mentioned, uh, Chris Mason and Mars and traveling. I think that's exciting, but what, really gets people, uh, jazzed here at BARDA and why we're all here is we see this industrial future where the space layer is another environment for manufacturing and it's routine and boring. That's, we get excited about things that become boring and, and that's what it was great to maybe colonize planets, but let's first make space boring and go from there.

Karl Yeah, amazing. , One thing is you guys just, announced that you recently raised, uh, good amount of money, $187 million, and you're hiring for a lot of positions, uh, even on the internship level. Do you wanna give our listeners, you know, [00:31:00] what are you looking for? What kind of people are you hiring right now?

Adrian Yeah, so it is very broad that across the spacecraft team we're expanding all the subsystems, uh, software guidance, navigations, structures, thermal engineers mechanisms and payload engineers, of course avionics, electrical. And then on the pharma side, we're really building out the team. The pace of our mission is increasing so rapidly. Amount of molecules and projects we're doing , is undergoing a Cambrian explosion. And so we need as many formulation scientists, process engineers, drug substance scientists, uh, as we can get, and we've, been very fortunate. Our team. We have scientists and engineers from places like Amgen, Genentech, Gilead, Merck, resilience, and we're continuing to build out those teams and , we are always interested in new graduates as well. Uh, we're very fortunate to have strong university partners and, we look forward to continuing to recruit from there.

Erum Yeah, I, love that. And I took a look at your website and I saw those internship positions. And I will say that [00:32:00] we do have a lot of, um, recent graduates that listen to the podcasts and. Some of them were from different fields that entered workforce development programs to get into biotech. Um, so people are listening. , This will be in California and that's where you guys are headquartered, right?

Mike It is. And, I can add on to Adrian's explanation that we've been strong with our, um, internship programs for a while and we get an incredible number who join us full time afterwards. So. I think we see that as a great opportunity to get energetic people into the organization and it's helping us, um, fuel the growth. Yeah.

Erum Oh, no, Carl, I'm gonna apply. See you later. See you later. Let's take, this is, this is very dangerous. This is a very dangerous episode for Messaging Lab. Um, okay. So we're entering the part of our episode where we'd like to ask quickfire questions. Um, that might be a little silly, but, you know, we like to get your perspective and have a little fun at the end here. So, um, I'll kick it off and then call, um, ask the next one. So here we go. All right. [00:33:00] Microgravity or moon gravity, where would you rather run your next experiment? If money is on an issue,

Mike , It's lower Earth orbit. Get it up. Get it down. I wanna make it part of Earth. It's our neighbor.

Erum Okay. All right. All right,

Karl Adrian, any different, uh, or addition to that? , You guys can both answer these? Yeah, definitely microgravity. Okay. Okay. What is the first drug you'd wanna see fully manufactured in space or in orbit?

Adrian The one we can get going the fastest. Yeah. I, I think the first one I think is gonna be so important for VARDA and the whole industry. So I think it's just looking at what is that first important problem and , which patients are gonna need it the soonest, and that's where we gotta focus.

Erum Amazing. Okay. So. Here's a fun one, a space movie that actually gets the science right.

Mike Actually, I just rewatched the Martian and it's excellent, and especially now that I'm, [00:34:00] living amongst so many aerospace engineers, I get it now. I admire this group of people solving problems. This is what they do.

Adrian It's really tough with all the spacecraft engineers. You can easily say the wrong thing here. So I'm, , I like more of the science fiction space movies, but I get a lot of heat for it. As far as the book, I think, uh uh, uh, Kaz Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut really enjoyable. He dropped out of chemistry, but he learned a lot of chemistry Cat's. Cradle is Ice nine, right? Yep. Ice nine. Exactly. So the whole crystal structure thing.

Karl Yeah. It's also a little bit of a cautionary tale. Oh,

Erum snap. You read it. We'll have to read it.

Karl Um, okay. Uh, and this was for both of you. What is the most unexpected thing you've learned from working with rocket engineers or astronauts?

Adrian Most unexpected, I think just how well they can model everything. That's really been surprising and simulations have gotten so [00:35:00] sophisticated for all of the aerospace side.

Mike Yeah, again, I'll just come back. Working in long periods of drug development, um, with unstructured problems. I think it's amazing how the engineers here can, um, put a problem set together. Create the bounds of it and then just figure it out and it just, it blows me away.

Erum Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay, and this is a fun one. Um, would you like to have coffee here on earth or tea in orbit?

Adrian Coffee here on earth For me,

Mike anything in orbit?

Karl Me.

Erum Okay. Alright.

Karl Okay. So that, begs the question like, how many people on the team have been in orbit? Zero

Erum guy. Yeah.

Karl Zero and

Mike orbit.

Karl Yeah.

Mike We haven't hired any astronauts yet.

Erum Oh. Kate Rubins. We, we

Mike saved the trips. We saved the trip for the molecules. They get to go up. Uh,

Adrian part of our low cost strategy is to take the people out of the spacecraft so that you could have it go very fast.

Karl Much more cost effective, [00:36:00] less expensive.

Erum Yes. Yes, yes. Absolutely. Well, this has been so interesting and I am learning so much about how you can manufacture molecules in space. This is a whole new way of an industry coming up, being an extension of Earth. This is so great. I cannot wait to keep following you guys. Learn more. Thank you so much for coming on The Grow Everything, get you back on. Oh yeah, definitely.

Karl Thank you.

Mike Thanks for the opportunity. We appreciate it.

Karl Yeah. Thank you.

Erum Hey, this episode is sponsored by Messaging Lab. At Messaging Lab, we translate complex science and economics into compelling business narratives, and we have done so for the most successful biotech forward companies across pharma, agriculture, personal care and beauty materials, and the list goes on. We're here to make sure your ideas not only get heard, but resonate with your audience. So if it's time to amplify your company's voice and elevate your business, [00:37:00] visit us@messaginglab.com. Let's grow.

Karl Ira, how do you like that episode?

Mike Thank you so much for coming on the Grow Everything podcast. Really appreciate it. AD LAB?OUTRO/COMMENTARY

Erum I loved it. Wow. I mean, at first I think I wasn't really clear on how they operated 'cause I didn't do as much research as I needed to. Um, but. I love it. , This whole idea of being able to optimize existing drugs for better performance characteristics. The top of the episode you mentioned solubility, looking at how drugs can be more bioavailable when they are shipped. And put in different environments before they're even consumed. And then when they're consumed, how efficacious are they? And so it's very valuable because if you can make drugs that are more shelf stable at room temperature, it expands the market and enables it for people not only in . Cities in different parts, in different in suburbs, but it's also in remote areas so that they can get the medications they need, which is something we've talked to Kate Rubins a lot about. She's very interested in how to take space applications or applications made for space to remote areas here on earth to help people that might need it.

Karl Yeah, I mean what they've done that guys at Varda is they've proven that you can send a factory [00:38:00] to space, have it orbit around earth, and then send a capsule back with a payload down to the earth surface. And like you say, being able to create these molecules that are more stable, that you don't need to refrigerate opens up markets. And I think that the market for Varda's work, uh, is gonna be huge. As far as I know. They're the only company that can manufacture pharmaceuticals and microgravity. And so that means that, they're very much a cutting edge platform company. Clearly they raised a good amount of money and they're hiring big time. So, uh, I think the potential is gigantic.

Erum Yeah, absolutely. And I'm so curious to see what other industries are gonna take this playbook and make things in space. And right now we're talking about pharmaceutical companies that would. Like to work with Varda on optimizing their molecules. But where else does this play, right? I mean, we like to think of how biotech can influence all industries here on the podcast and how can space biotech do that [00:39:00] for every single industry. So we'll be keeping our finger on the pulse to see how space continues to influence our world here. Down on Earth. Um, and I would recommend people, if you're very interested in this space and you have the skills and curiosity and the drive to get into this industry, look up the jobs at Varda. I looked on their site and wow, they're hiring for a lot of people. I mean, you raise close to $200 million, you have some money to spend, and they're spending on brilliant, passionate people. So jobs are being made. There are jobs out there people. So hopefully if this lines up with what you're thinking for yourself, go for it.

Karl Yeah. One thing I just wanna add was in going back through our show notes and then also rereading the Not Boring article on, um, Varda, what struck me was that in the piece, Elliot makes the case that, eventually space manufacturing will just be considered. Manufacturing. Manufacturing. It's kind of like what we say about Biomanufacturing. Biomanufacturing. Is it gonna just be manufacturing? All [00:40:00] manufacturing is just making things, and it's also what we say about the bioeconomy. The bioeconomy is the economy space. Economy eventually become the economy. Um, so there's a lot of room for growth and there's a lot of exciting things happening.

Erum Yes, absolutely. So we'll bring you some more space, biotech and regular biotech news and information and people here on the Grow Everything podcast. Please stay tuned for upcoming episodes. We have some incredible guests lined up for you guys and reach out to us. We love hearing from you. If there's a certain topic you want us to dig into or you have a question or a suggestion for a guest to come on the podcast, we'd really appreciate it.

Karl All right, well, that's the pot. Thank you.

Erum Thank you. End Card