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A comment on The insulin racket: why a drug made free 100 years ago is recently expensive. Parent comment

Re:The insulin racket: why a drug made free 100 years ago is... by greatpatton on Tuesday June 25, 2019 @09:15AM (#20273831)
As a chemist you won't even bother to do the synthesis. You just order it from Sigma-Aldrich. Currently it cost about 300$ for 100g.
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Re:The insulin racket: why a drug made free 100 years ago is... by yread on Tuesday June 25, 2019 @09:22AM (#20273874)
Not a chemist but in NL S-A shows 33,50 eur/100g (ships today!)

https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/aldrich/132098?...

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Re:The insulin racket: why a drug made free 100 years ago is... by jonlucc on Tuesday June 25, 2019 @10:57AM (#20274857)
As I'm sure you know but so that others understand, that's technical grade, not pharmaceutical grade.
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Re:The insulin racket: why a drug made free 100 years ago is... by sigmahead on Tuesday June 25, 2019 @12:29PM (#20275866)
Interesting! However on Sigma-Aldrich website it says: technical grade, 60%

How do you get from 60% to 99%? Do you have to (for pharmaceutical grade)?

What are the remaining 40%? poison? harmless byproducts?

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Re:The insulin racket: why a drug made free 100 years ago is... by greatpatton on Tuesday June 25, 2019 @04:25PM (#20278521)
You can buy the 97% version. Then a quick analysis (IR specter, NMR) will give you an idea of the contaminants if they are not specified by the manufacturer. Based on that you can take additional step to purify the product (extraction, chromatography, etc.) to the required level. The yield may not be perfect making overall cost a little bit higher, but this is really basic organic chemistry.
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