| ▲ | olalonde 15 hours ago |
| The author is missing a massive segment of that gray market: people who buy FDA-approved weight loss drugs (e.g., semaglutide or tirzepatide) at 2–5% of the brand-name price. This route carries some risk, but there are ways to mitigate it, such as performing third-party testing. I assume most people who do this couldn't realistically afford the brand-name drug anyway, making this their only viable treatment. |
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| ▲ | beowulfey 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Even if you test a batch once, do people who get testing done do testing on all batches? The synthesis of peptides uses some NASTY chemicals. I would be worried about lax manufacturer policies leading to contamination, even if one batch passes. The costs of FDA certification are the effect of that protection. But whatever, this is the same attitude that people have against owning insurance. It is hard to recognize the cost of risk. |
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| ▲ | cjbgkagh 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I bought Semaglutide at 50c/mg and had it tested, it's the real deal. What's the normal price, $100/mg? My gf is in medicine so she had a friend test it through their work. |
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| ▲ | ramraj07 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Test what, exactly? Purity? LPS contamination? They cant test for every last picogram of material in it. Did they test for viral contamination? Even drug addicts heat up the thing they inject so theyre actually safer than you can ever be. Dont inject things from China into your blood! | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Won't be anywhere near that. I don't have prices handy, but Lilly sells tirzepatide (a bit better than sema, and usually a bit more expensive) at 500/mo (maybe a bit less now on the trump rx site, I don't recall). Depending on dose, that'll be about 10 bucks a mg give or take. At 50c/mg for sema you were paying a bit of a premium. These days even tirz is only about 30-35c/mg. | | |
| ▲ | cjbgkagh 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | I used to buy from Peptide Sciences so I was certainly paying a premium for reputation at $20/mg. I think Semaglutide is now at a bit of a premium due to it falling out of favour and most people switching to Triz and Reta. I only take a low dose and am happy to stick with what's working. There must be an irony that it was Trumps crackdown on peptides, I presume to prop up his prescription company, that forced me to switch to Chinese supply. By doing it all at once it created a critical mass for that market. | | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | IIRC the biggest impetus for cracking down was Lilly throwing a fit about the gray market supplying reta well before it even becomes available via the normal channels (who knows when that will be). But as you say, it just pushes people to buy direct from Chinese vendors (and it is basically impossible to stop direct imports like that). Would be safer if more reputable US-based sellers could supply it semi-openly as before. Nexaph is still selling it, but I figure the clock is ticking on that. | | |
| ▲ | deaux 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | > and it is basically impossible to stop direct imports like that How so? Is there a particular characteristic of the US that makes it so, or of the channels through which this is done? I get that in general it's impossible as with recreational drugs, but when you look at cocaine then at least to traffick it to most wealthy countries it takes a large amount of resources and is at high risk of getting caught. Which is why they're increasingly starting to use narco submarines. This greatly increases the price of the product. Why can't the same happen to peptide imports? |
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| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > had it tested, it's the real deal How did they test encapsulation? I thought the whole problem is your stomach acid breaking it down. | | | |
| ▲ | olalonde 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Last I checked, Ozempic (Semaglutide) is around $1000/month in the US. A typical 1 month pen is 4-8mg, so around $250/mg to $500/mg. So yeah, I may have understated how much cheaper the gray market version is. | | | |
| ▲ | nmbrskeptix 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | __MatrixMan__ 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| I imagine it's legally risky to buy a large quantity, test it, and then resell smaller quantities. That's a shame because the alternative is probably that some folks settle for products of dubious quality and end up getting hurt. |
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| ▲ | olalonde 15 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yes, I believe most people buy directly from somewhat shady Chinese factories. I tried contacting a few and they all refuse to meet or send samples from within China, so I assume what they're doing is illegal in China. In the US, it's legal to sell them as a "research chemical" but the FDA is cracking down on companies that are clearly engaging in b2c. There's this company that offers free testing: https://finnrick.com/ Another popular testing company is https://janoshik.com Some other useful resources: https://graymarket.substack.com/ and https://glp1forum.com/ There are a few subreddits as well. FWIW, I never ended up buying any myself. | | |
| ▲ | __MatrixMan__ 14 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Right, but I don't know the people at those companies. I have local chemists that I trust. I'm just lamenting the fact that developing that kind of trust network everywhere, so everybody can be similarly sure of what they're putting in their body, is likely to run afoul of local laws. | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | FWIW, finnrick's claim to fame is being free. Someone is paying for it. They have also failed blind tests in the past, Janoshik (IIRC) never has. There are several US-based labs but none of them have the same reputation as Janoshik. | | |
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| ▲ | kurthr 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Actually, you just described most of the tele-health and compounding pharmacies that carry GLP1s! Where do you think Hims, Ro, Brello, or the rest get the APIs they sell to their customers? They get them from grey market suppliers in China. They don't go to Ely Lilly or NovoNordisk and say, "politely sir, may I skirt around your IP and sell your drugs for 10x what they cost instead of 10,000x what they cost?" Hopefully, they test them and filter them and use sterile/pharma processes for what they sell to their customers. Well, except for the Medspas, those are just wild west snake oil farms. | | |
| ▲ | digitalpacman 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This actually isn't true. Hims compounded the GLP1s themselves. They broke/are breaking the law. Theres lawsuits. | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Things have changed a little, but during the time that compounding was explicitly allowed, the licensed pharmacies were buying from FDA approved manufacturers, sometimes in China, and sometimes the same manufacturers who also do contract manufacturing for Lilly. Today ... who knows? It might just be the same gray market stuff us plebes can get. |
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| ▲ | rootusrootus 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It probably is, but that does not stop people from effectively doing it. There are a number of groups that specialize in conducting group buys, doing a bunch of testing on randomized samples, and then shipping out the product to individuals. Also, if you plan to be on it a good long time, you can buy a bunch of kits yourself (a kit is 10 vials), run a bunch of tests, and then just have a nice stockpile that will last you years. The testing will likely cost as much or more than the product itself, but given how inexpensive the product is, you still come out way ahead financially. | |
| ▲ | GenerWork 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >I imagine it's legally risky to buy a large quantity, test it, and then resell smaller quantities It is illegal, but it doesn't stop people from doing it. In fact, if you don't have any sort of test results for your peptides people will absolutely avoid buying your wares until you have them. Purity and mg/ml are the 2 basic test results that any shop worth their stuff will have. | | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus 15 hours ago | parent [-] | | To be fair, most everyone I know who is buying on the gray market considers vendor tests to be minimally required, but still insufficient -- there is no assurance they tested the product they shipped to you. Plan on testing it yourself. I'm sure some people do trust nexaph enough, though, to not worry so much. Whether that trust is well placed, that is a separate discussion. | | |
| ▲ | cjbgkagh 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | With most of these you can really tell if they work or not and there is a pretty predicable dose dependent reaction profile. With slow meds like semaglutide you'd maybe not notice it in the first week but you will by week 3. I had mine tested but if that wasn't available I probably would have considered the anecdotal evidence to be sufficient. It appears that most of the scamming is just people taking the money and not shipping anything. | | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | The most dangerous failures I've seen have been sending the wrong peptide. 15 mg of tirzepatide and 15 mg of semaglutide is a very different experience. After nearly getting hosed in a group buy (I did get refunded, but that is far from a guarantee) because of a product mismatch, I decided to just pay for nexaph. Love him or hate him, his popularity relies on his reputation and he has been more careful than most suppliers to cultivate it with more extensive testing and quality control. | | |
| ▲ | cjbgkagh 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | That makes sense, I don't like that the bottles are unlabelled so the first thing I have to do is label them. The box is labelled and this seems to be standard practice. Semaglutide is falling out of favour so I guess they're substituting. I have 4 years supply now so I guess I'll check back then and see where the market is at. | | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I have 4 years supply now <Insert that "one of us, one of us..." GIF here> I know a bunch of people with multi-year stockpiles. I've got ~5 years of reta and ~6 years of tirz. This is too much, of course, but I determined a while back that under no circumstances do I ever intend to find myself unable to source it. My life is immeasurably better after losing 110 pounds. | | |
| ▲ | a2tech 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Could you direct me to some resources you used to figure out dosing and sourcing? I’ve been interested in trying it out (need to lose a lot of weight) but have been paralyzed by too much contradictory information. |
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