Eascra Biotech, a nanomedicine startup with a lab in Worcester, Mass., has been awarded a NASA In Space Production Applications (InSPA) phase 2 contract, valued at $7.96m. The award supports Eascra’s work to commercialise low Earth orbit manufacturing of its Janus Base Nanoparticles (JBNps), a delivery platform for RNA therapeutics, gene editing, and other hard-to-deliver treatments.
The InSPA programme is designed to catalyse commercial use of the space environment to produce novel materials and products for use on Earth. Eascra’s selection reflects NASA’s stated priority to ignite the orbital economy and advance low Earth orbit commercialization.
“This phase 2 award is a significant milestone for Eascra and for the field of space-enabled medicine,” said Mari Anne Snow, Eascra co-founder and CEO.
“It recognises both our technology and our manufacturing approach. Microgravity allows for more rigorous upfront testing during early-stage development, something that can streamline the path to approvals here on Earth. We’re working toward bringing our JBNp platform into FDA clinical trials by 2028, taking us one step closer to making space-manufactured therapeutics a clinical reality.”
Eascra has completed six missions to the International Space Station in less than three years. The company anticipates completing six additional missions over the next two years as it scales toward commercial-stage manufacturing. Eascra’s JBNp platform, invented by co-founder Yupeng Chen, an associate professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Connecticut, delivers RNA therapeutics to hard-to-penetrate tissues like articular cartilage, kidneys, and solid tumors. JBNps are room-temperature stable, eliminating the need for cold chain requirements.
Osteoarthritis, one of the conditions Eascra’s cartilage-targeted therapeutics aim to address, affects one in four Americans and has no known cure. According to the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) studies in the Lancet Rheumatology, 595m people had osteoarthritis in 2020, representing 7.6% of the world’s population. This number rose to roughly 607m in 2021, or 7.7% of the global population. The condition represents a $65bn market growing at 8.7% annually. Demand for effective treatment is only increasing.
The InSPA phase 2 contract builds on a series of recent milestones for Eascra, including: First place at the TechConnect Bio in Space Innovation Challenge in March 2026, inclusion in Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech list for 2025, and more than $8m in previous grants, awards, and commercial-sponsored research from organisations including top 10 pharma partners, NASA, NSF, AFWERX, and MassVentures.