What if one way to accelerate drug discovery and enhance therapeutic efficacy lies beyond Earth’s atmosphere? Microgravity—a condition in which gravitational forces are significantly weaker than on Earth—alters cellular and biochemical processes in ways that can’t be replicated on the ground. These dynamics, present on orbiting crewed spacecraft like the International Space Station (ISS) and unmanned platforms, create unique opportunities for pharmaceutical research, including advances in protein crystallization, in molecular modeling, and in complex biological studies.

As the ISS and other orbital platforms become more accessible for scientific experimentation, space-based drug development is shifting from theoretical promise to operational reality. Leading biopharmaceutical firms, research institutions, and federal agencies—including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and private partners—are beginning to explore the potential of microgravity to solve long-standing challenges in biomedical innovation.

This piece outlines why microgravity matters for drug development, highlights current efforts, and offers policy recommendations to support this emerging field.

Why Go to Space to Develop Drugs?

Microgravity offers unique advantages for drug development by enabling more precise studies of biological molecules and processes. In space, proteins often crystallize into more uniform structures, helping scientists design better-targeted therapies. Microgravity also allows researchers to observe cellular behavior and tissue growth in more natural, 3-D ways, free from the effects of gravity, which cause cells to settle on Earth. These insights could offer a possible way to accelerate drug discovery, improve formulation strategies, and enable more effective treatments. Several examples illustrate this:

Protein Structure: Many diseases are caused by malfunctioning proteins. To develop treatments, researchers must understand the protein’s structure, which often starts with protein crystallization—where dissolved proteins are coaxed into forming solid, ordered crystals analyzed using X-ray diffraction. On Earth, this process is difficult; in microgravity, however, crystals grow larger and with fewer defects, making them easier to study. Over 500 such experiments have taken place aboard the ISS—its largest research category. Companies like Merck and Bristol Myers Squibb have used the ISS to advance protein studies, including early work on insulin.

Merck, for example, has explored how growing protein crystals in space could help reformulate its blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda® (pembrolizumab) from an IV to an injectable form. In 2017, the company sent the drug to the ISS to see if microgravity could produce smaller, more uniform crystals. Early results showed improved viscosity and injectability compared to Earth-grown crystals—potentially making cancer treatments more accessible.

Tissue Chips: TheNIH’s Tissue Chips in Space initiative sends organ-on-chip systems to the ISS to help scientists study aging, disease progression, and drug responses to contribute to study aging and molecular targets that can slow it down. Scientists use tissue chips to study diseases and test the effects of drugs on those tissues, including cardiovascular and neurodegenerative drug candidates, improving disease modeling and drug testing.

Who’s Leading the Way?

Surprisingly, the effort to expand life science innovation in space isn’t just theoretical—it’s happening now, through both public and private initiatives.

Public Sector: The ISS, operated by an international partnership of five space agencies—NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), European Space Agency (ESA), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and Canadian Space Agency (CSA)—has hosted life sciences research for over 20 years. NASA, through the ISS National Laboratory, leads many of these initiatives. In collaboration with the NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), NASA has helped host tissue chip experiments, allowing scientists to observe disease processes and test drugs more effectively.

Private Sector: Several private companies now operate microgravity research platforms aboard the ISS, using regularly scheduled missions to send and retrieve materials. For example, Merck has famously improved the performance of its cancer drug Keytruda on the ISS. Aerospace leader Boeing has explored microbial endurance in space. Startups including Space Pharma, Space Tango, and Redwire have developed proprietary research and biomanufacturing platforms housed on the ISS.

Some companies are going further. Varda Space Industries created its own unmanned autonomous manufacturing platform, which launches on a commercial rocket, grows drug protein crystals in orbit, and returns them to Earth. Varda successfully grew ritonavir on its first mission and has launched two more since.

Other firms are planning for the ISS’s retirement in 2030. Companies including Axiom Space with Axiom Station, Blue Origin and Sierra Space with Orbital Reef, VAST with Haven-2, and Voyager Technologies and Airbus with Starlab are developing manned commercial stations to host life sciences labs and carry forward the ISS’s legacy.

Why Does It Matter?

Bringing a new drug to market is a long, expensive, and risky endeavor—typically taking over a decade and costing more than $2 billion. A significant portion of this is spent in early R&D stages identifying viable candidates. Microgravity research could be one possible way to accelerate this process.

High-quality protein crystals grown in space allow scientists to study disease-related protein structure in greater detail, improving drug design. Microgravity also enables the creation of 3-D cell cultures that mimic human tissues more accurately. These models help researchers better understand diseases and test how drugs interact with human cells—potentially reducing costly trial-and-error early in development.

Additionally, conditions like muscle and bone loss progress more rapidly in microgravity, enabling researchers to study aging and disease processes that would unfold more slowly on Earth. Scientists are now using this environment to uncover new insights into human health and drug development generally.

This work is already underway—but without proactive federal support, this promising field could falter before reaching its potential.

What Can Policymakers Do?

1. Pass a “National 21st Century Space Act” with clear mission authorization procedures.

Right now, microgravity drug development suffers from regulatory uncertainty. There is no designated agency with the authority to authorize life sciences activities in space. Companies must navigate a patchwork of interagency reviews, which slows innovation. Congress should establish a clear mission authorization framework to support life sciences R&D in orbit.

2. Establish a space-focused Manufacturing USA Institute.

Since 2014, Manufacturing USA Institutes have been created to secure U.S. global leadership in advanced manufacturing in fields ranging from robotics to bio-fabrication. A new institute—the Advanced Manufacturing Institute for Space Platforms Advancing Competitive Engineering (SPACE)—could do the same for microgravity-enabled biomanufacturing. This entity could connect researchers, companies, and public agencies to drive investment, workforce development, and R&D.

3. Fund space-enabled biotech R&D.

Pharmaceutical companies can be cautious adopters of new technologies. Public investment is essential to help firms bridge the “valley of death” from lab discovery to commercial scale. Agencies like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) are well-suited to fund high-risk, high-reward space biotech efforts. The National Science Foundation (NSF) and NIH can also support translational projects that drive commercialization.

The past decade has seen remarkable momentum in space-based research and commercialization. The next frontier of biopharmaceutical innovation may well lie in orbit. Imagine more potent drugs requiring fewer doses, medications with fewer side effects, or even lab-grown organs made in space. These are not far-fetched ideas—they are now within reach. With the right policy support, microgravity life sciences research could help advance biopharmaceutical innovation and secure U.S. leadership in the emerging space bioeconomy. It’s time to bring life-saving discoveries back from the stars.