The Israeli company Space Pharma, supported by the Israel Space Agency in the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology, will launch an experimental system to the International Space Station between Tuesday and Wednesday night, which will include medical experiments by three companies from Switzerland. The company’s automated laboratory is slated for launch in an unmanned SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on March 14 (March 15 early morning Israel time). It will be connected to the infrastructure of the American part of the space station, and will operate for about a month, before being returned to Earth in the Dragon spacecraft.
In the miniaturized laboratory, the size of which is similar to a shoebox, five experiments will be carried out. Three of them will belong to the Cutiss company, which deals in dermatology. They will test the ability of skin tissue to heal cuts in microgravity conditions, the production of collagen in the skin under such conditions, as well as the ability of cells to organize into three-dimensional skin tissue.
“These processes will help in the development of many products, for example a biological plaster to treat the cuts of astronauts in space, or a biological glue to fuse cuts in case they have to perform surgeries in space during prolonged missions,” explained Yossi Yamin, founder of Space Pharma and CEO of its development center in Israel, in a conversation with the Institute’s website Davidson. “They are also intended to develop 3D skin tissue intended for cosmetic or medical skin grafts on Earth.”
Another experiment will be done with Doxil – a drug for the treatment of cancer packed inside liposomes – tiny fat bubbles that are supposed to ensure that the drug is released only at the target site. In an experiment in space, the stability of the liposome and the medicine inside it will be tested over time in microgravity conditions, to examine the possibility of using them in space missions and their production in space.
The latest experiment is by the Supersonic company, which is involved in the production of emulsions – mixtures of an aqueous substance and a fatty substance. The company produces cosmetic lotions, partly to delay the aging of the skin. In an experiment in space, they will try to produce an emulsion from tiny molecules, hoping that the production in microgravity will yield a more homogeneous and stable emulsion than on Earth.
In about two months, Space Pharma is scheduled to launch another experiment to the space station, of manufacturing in microgravity conditions a drug for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The uniqueness of this experiment is the integration of artificial intelligence in the planning and control of the protein synthesis process in microgravity, in the hope of producing an efficient 3D protein. The experiment is being carried out by an Italian company, but this time Spice Pharma not only provides the platform, but also owns the majority of the drug.
“Last year our company quadrupled its sales and revenues, and this year we are expected to grow threefold. Our work plan is complete, and it is quickly filling up even for 2024, in which we are also expected to continue growing,” says Yamin. “The segmentation of income is also changing, and today almost all the money comes from commercial companies, not from academic or institutional research grants. In the coming years, a suitable infrastructure will be built in space not only for research, but also for actual production, and here too we have great business potential, because in the pharmaceutical market we need production On a small scale, of hundreds of grams or kilograms – not tons – and these are products whose value is thousands of dollars per milligram.”
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Itai Nebo is the editor-in-chief of the Davidson Institute for Science Education website, the educational arm of the Weizmann Institute of Science.