Space startup Varda raises $187 million to make drugs in orbit

Space startup Varda announced on Thursday that it has raised $187 million in Series C funding, led by venture capital firms Natural Capital and Shrug Capital, to continue advancing drug manufacturing in space.

The latest round included participation from Peter Thiel, Lux Capital, Khosla Ventures and Caffeinated Capital. It brought the total capital Varda’s raised to $329 million.

“By expanding, we can support work on more complex molecules and ultimately increase cadence to achieve the turnaround times the pharmaceutical industry expects,” Chief Science Officer Adrian Radocea said in a press release Thursday.

Varda’s main mission is to launch and return drugs made in space. The startup has said the medicines crystallize differently in orbit due to the gravity differences, which would allow it to complete drugs that are currently difficult to manufacture.

“And so what this series C allows us to do is two big things. First is increase cadence, meaning more flights more often, so the rate of flying,” Varda CEO Will Bruey told CNBC’s Morgan Brennan for the “Manifest Space” podcast. “And also allows us to build out our biologics lab, which is our way of determining which drug molecules make sense to send a microgravity through a bunch of testing on the ground and then preparing that formulation for flight.”

In 2024, the space startup’s W-Series 1 capsule received FAA approval to return after successfully creating the drug Ritonavir the previous year.

So far, Varda said the company has been able to complete three space launches. Now, a fourth is in orbit, and the company expects to launch a fifth by the end of the year. Varda makes all of its parts in house.

“With this capital, Varda will continue to increase our flight cadence and build out the pharmaceutical lab that will deliver the world’s first microgravity-enabled drug formulation,” Bruey said.

Varda Space Industries is the first company to process materials outside the International Space Station.

Recently, the space company has also operated a testbed for the U.S. government to use the W-series reentry vehicles to advance technology.

Varda said it has expanded into Huntsville, Alabama, and opened a laboratory in El Segundo, California, to begin work to crystallize more drugs.

“Our new lab space is an investment in our belief that in-space pharmaceutical manufacturing will drive the foundation of the orbital economy,” Radocea said.

Correction: Varda makes all of its parts in house and is based out of Hunstville, Alabama. A previous version of this story misstated the system.