There's a company in El Segundo, California that manufactures drugs in orbit.
They put a capsule on a SpaceX rocket, launch it to low Earth orbit, make the drugs autonomously in zero gravity, and then shoot it back through the atmosphere at Mach 25 to land in the desert.
Tell that to someone in passing and they’ll slap you into next Tuesday.
The capsule is named the Winnebago. Not exactly the name you'd expect from a company manufacturing cutting-edge pharmaceuticals in orbit. But then again, nothing about this company is what you'd expect.
source - https://www.varda.com/careers
Okay but why space
Here's the thing about gravity — it ruins drugs (and my ability to dunk).
When you crystallize a pharmaceutical compound on Earth, gravity interferes. It causes molecules to settle unevenly, creates imperfections in the crystal structure, and affects how well your body can actually absorb the drug. The drug works, but it's partially working against itself.
In microgravity, those forces all but disappear. Molecules float freely during formation. The crystals grow nearly perfectly — forming structures that can’t be made as effectively on Earth. The result: drugs that are more soluble and stable in forms that don't exist on good ‘ole Mother Earth.
The economics only make sense for a select number of products. You wouldn't ship steel to orbit. You wouldn't ship gold. But pharmaceuticals? Now we’re talkin’. Varda picked the one thing expensive enough to justify the cost and is shipping it faster than your Uber can drive at 2:00 am.
The people behind it
Will Bruey spent years at SpaceX as a spacecraft engineer. When SpaceX figured out how to get to space cheaply, he started asking: what do we actually do up there?
Delian Asparouhov, a partner at Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, and perhaps more importantly, a former “Waffle Boy”, spent COVID going deep on microgravity manufacturing until he couldn't think about anything else. He started calling SpaceX engineers he knew from MIT until one of them said yes. That was Will Bruey.
Seriously. Check out Delian’s LinkedIn. All-time “experience” section. An interview over waffles, Delian?
Their thesis, said plainly: space shouldn't be Star Trek. It should be a part of the supply chain. The goal is to make manufacturing in orbit as boring and reliable as a shipping container crossing the ocean.
Oh — and they just signed a lease to expand into the former Mattel R&D center in El Segundo. They’re literally manufacturing pharmaceutical drugs in space out of a building where Mattel used to design Hot Wheels and Barbie dolls. Only in America.
These are your guys.
Government shenanigans
Varda launched W-1 in June 2023. Within ~27 hours in orbit, they successfully grew crystals of an HIV and hepatitis C medication in zero gravity. Mission accomplished. Time to come home.
They tried to land it, but the FAA said no. Not yet. Go back to orbit. Sir, this isn’t your grandfather’s Winnebago.
For eight months, the W-1 orbited Earth with its space drugs — fully finished, fully cooked, completely unable to land. Nobody had written the paperwork for this situation yet.
Varda's public response: "Our spacecraft is healthy across all systems. It was originally designed for a full year on orbit if needed."
Translation: we're fine, we'll wait, but please figure this out.
They finally got permission in February 2024 and the Winnebago screamed back through the atmosphere at Mach 25 and touched down in the Utah desert.
And unlike the crew from Spaceballs, Varda actually found what they were looking for. NO need to comb the desert.
The drugs went to a lab. Results: exactly what they expected. Them space drugs cooked real good.
W-2 landed in February 2025. W-3 in May 2025. W-4 launched June 2025 but had to wave off a reentry burn to evaluate a propellant feed system issue — the spacecraft is safe, just waiting its turn. W-5 returned January 29, 2026 — Varda's X post that day: "What goes up, must come down. Welcome home, W-5.” W-6 launched this past Tuesday morning. As of right now, there's a Winnebago in orbit.
My honest take
This is early. Each mission currently costs millions. The goal is to bring that number down significantly as operations scale. That math has to work for the companies writing checks.
There's also the question of what comes after the seed. Varda crystallizes in microgravity — but manufacturing at scale still happens back on Earth. They're one link in a long chain, and every other link has to cooperate for this to reach patients.
But here's what Bruey keeps saying: their pharmaceutical customers don't care that they're going to space. What they actually want is the formulation. Space isn't the product. The product is the product. Space is just the factory floor.
If they pull this off
Every drug that has ever struggled in clinical trials gets a second look. Every compound that can't be crystallized correctly on Earth gets a new path to market.
Varda's vision is an industrial park in low Earth orbit. Pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, fiber optics — anything where a higher-quality version can be made without gravity getting in the way. Not a space station. Not a colony. A factory. A boring, profitable, indispensable factory that happens to be 200 miles above your head.
Space born, Earth bound. And today, W-6 is up there cooking.
Go to the field: varda.com
Want to work out here? 🌾 Varda is hiring in El Segundo, California — out of a building that used for Barbie and Hot Wheels R&D. We cannot stress this enough. Spacecraft engineers, pharmaceutical scientists, finance, heck, even HR.
Open roles → varda.com/careers
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