After the successful launch of South Korea’s Nuri rocket, attention is turning to a new area that could become an important part of the country’s space industry: space-based research and production of medicines. This idea isn’t new. In 2017, Merck, the company behind the cancer drug Keytruda, sent samples of the drug’s active ingredient to the International Space Station (ISS) to study how it forms crystals in space.
“Space Medicine” means using the special conditions in space, especially low gravity, to create new drugs as well as make high-quality medicines that are hard to make on Earth. In space, proteins can form crystals more evenly, which helps scientists study their structure as well as create new types of medicine.
They found that the low gravity in space made the crystals more uniform and smoother. Using this knowledge, Merck developed a new version of Keytruda that can be injected under the skin, and it was approved for use in the U.S. and Europe this year.
Other big drug companies have joined in. Eli Lilly is working with a company called Redwire to use space to develop drugs for chronic diseases. AstraZeneca is researching drug delivery and material development in space.
Now, Korean companies are moving fast to join the competition. SpaceLynkTech, a Korean space-pharma company, sent its experimental satellite BEE-1000 with the latest Nuri rocket to study the crystallization of Keytruda in space.
Innospace, the company that developed the rocket, has signed an agreement with SpaceLynkTech and Intergravity Technologies to work on space-based drug development. The Korean drug company Boryung is also partnering with the U.S. company Axiom Space to explore treatments for cancer, aging, and mental health disorders.