Agradecimentos: The authors acknowledge research funding from NASA (Grant NNX16AH09G) for this project. The content of this paper reflects the opinions of the two authors and not those of NASA. We are grateful to the many scientists in the pharmaceutical industry, academia, and government who took the time to educate us on the issues and share their insight and perspectives. These contributors are too many to list by name. We are especially grateful to Lynn Harper, Patrick Besha, and Alex McDonald from NASA as well as to Warren Bates and Debbie Wells from CASIS for invaluable insights and advice over the course of the project. Discussant comments during the Workshop "Entrepreneurship in the Public and Nonprofit Sectors" at the US National Academies of Science (October 2018) were highly appreciated and helped us rethink some arguments. Vonortas acknowledges the infrastructural support of the Institute of International Science and Technology Policy at the George Washington University for carrying out this research. He also acknowledges support from the Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics within the framework of the subsidy to the HSE by the Russian Academic Excellence Project ‘5–100’. None of the organizations mentioned above is responsible for the contents of this paper. Remaining mistakes and misconceptions are solely the responsibility of the authors Ver menos

Abstract: A basic mission of NASA is to use the United States’ segment of the International Space Station (ISS), designated a national laboratory, to facilitate the growth of a commercial marketplace in low Earth orbit for scientific research, technology development, observation and communications. Protein crystallization research has long been promoted as a promising commercial application of the ISS for drug development. In this paper we examine the case for microgravity protein crystallization under different private and public investment scenarios. The analysis suggests that sustaining investment is unlikely to come from individual companies alone. Public and private investment must be combined and managed to overcome a number of challenges including the need to integrate microgravity crystallization into the complex system of technologies involved in structure-based drug design. Multiple risks related to transportation costs/frequency, risk for cargo and research crew, and uncertainty about the longevity of the ISS complicate the calculus Ver menos