A Space Drugs Factory Denied Reentry to Earth

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https://gizmodo.com/space-pharmaceuticals-varda-regulations-faa-1850850528

Damn.

Thats going to be an expensive prescription to fill. For meds manufactured in space...from a single batch made in just one three hundred pound satellite. The whole world supply being that one batch!

Neat!

Maybe.. maybe these are expensive drugs to make here due to high defect rate caused by gravity? Maybe the batch size and more perfect crystal growing environment yields enough good useful medicine to actually cost less than home grown ? Maybe it'll lead to that here on Earth somehow.. or maybe even more difficult to make drugs can be made in space faster/better/cheaper.. etc - I'm sure someone's done Some cost:benefit math at least already to justify venturing down this research path in the first place. They're not likely to do it if it's a giant waste of time/money/energy with no gains or benefits to try realize..

i had no idea space had been commercialized to that extent. amazing.

If they make perfect crystals and thus a perfect version of the medicine in question then it will be in high demand. But if they can only make the stuff in tiny batches at the ISS then the supply will be tiny. Tiny supply, huge demand. Equals mega price tag. Aint rocket science (even though it takes rocket to make it possible).

If they are able to build a an orbiting space station the size of a Walmart to produce the stuff in scale then the cost can come down.

It just an experiment. But if they WERE to sell the result it would have a huge price tag.

i know there are many potential medicines and other products that can only be made in zero gravity, if only there was a way to simulate zero gravity on the ground.

Medicine is ideal for space manufacturing because it has a very high value per gram.

Millions of dollars worth of medicine can fit into a small space. They could literally be worth more than their weight in gold. Space industry intended to supply earth will make extremely value dense goods as opposed to say concrete.

Space industry intended to supply space might be the opposite. If heavy materials are needed in space, it's better to get them from space, rather than pay to get them out of a massive gravity well.