AstraZeneca Space Research

AstraZeneca Space Research refers to the ISS-based biologics and cell-therapy research run by AstraZeneca, the pharmaceutical group formed in 1999 from the merger of Sweden's Astra AB and Britain's Zeneca Group, headquartered in Cambridge, UK, listed on the London Stock Exchange, Nasdaq Stockholm and NYSE as AZN, and employing about 89,900 people as of 2025.

The company has run several distinct investigations aboard the International Space Station National Laboratory: nanoparticle formation for cancer vaccines, examining how microgravity affects the development of nanoparticles used in therapeutic cancer vaccines; monoclonal antibody production and stability, since these biologic molecules are used to treat cancer and autoimmune disease; and regenerative-medicine work on cell therapies targeting leukemia, breast cancer and glioblastoma.

According to the ISS National Lab, AstraZeneca's nanoparticle cancer-vaccine research launched on SpaceX's CRS-17 cargo mission in April 2019, and its monoclonal-antibody stability study launched on SpaceX's CRS-18 mission in July 2019. The company is named by the ISS National Lab alongside Sanofi Pasteur, Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and GlaxoSmithKline as one of several major pharmaceutical companies leveraging microgravity to improve biopharmaceutical manufacturing and drug development.

As with the other large drugmakers running similar programs, AstraZeneca's space-based research is one research line within a much larger global pharmaceutical business rather than a separately incorporated company.