The economics of manufacturing drugs in space

An analysis of Varda's plan to recrystallize drug ingredients in microgravity concludes that its economics depend heavily on how much solvent can be launched alongside the active ingredient. Assuming a 120kg manufacturing payload, methanol, and a solubility of 10 mg/mL, the analysis estimates that allotting 25% of the mass to materials would allow about 380g of ritonavir, roughly 950 doses of 400mg. Because each gram of API at that solubility needs about 790g of methanol, it concludes that solvent reuse is the only option for meaningful scale, which would require hundreds of reliable crystallization cycles.