Verify the product
A compound can be proven and the vial still be junk. Independent third-party lab tests are the only real signal.
The gap
Almost every gray-market vial is sold on one number: "99% purity"; a claim the seller rarely backs with an independent test. Independent testing routinely turns up under-dosed product, the wrong or degraded compound, residual solvents, or contamination. You don't have to trust the claim or the forum rumor; you can read the tests.
The live, producer-by-producer results live at Finnrick (thousands of independent tests across hundreds of producers) over the Janoshik public corpus; that is where the gap shows up in numbers.
What a clean test shows
| Test | Measures | Pass standard |
|---|---|---|
| HPLC | purity + API mass | purity ≥ 98%, mass within ±10% of label |
| Mass spec | identity | matches the claimed molecule |
| LAL assay | endotoxin | < 10 EU/mg of API |
| NMR F-19 | TFA (counterion salt) | blank; no TFA |
| Heavy metals | As / Cd / Pb / Hg | absent |
How to read a result
- HPLC shows purity and how much API is present; on its own it does not prove the molecule is the right one.
- Mass spec confirms identity; that it is the compound claimed, not a look-alike.
- Endotoxin (LAL) is the line that matters most for anything injected; contamination here is what sends people to the hospital, not a low purity figure.
- Batch-specific beats a generic certificate; a test of last year's lot says nothing about the vial in your hand.
Red flags
- A purity claim with no certificate you can actually open
- A certificate from the vendor's own "lab" rather than a named independent one
- No batch or lot number linking the test to the vial
- "Lab tested" as a phrase, with no document attached
- One old test used to vouch for every batch since
A vendor's own certificate doesn't count; results must be independent and tied to the batch you'd receive. These are what an FDA-regulated compounding pharmacy guarantees by default.
Who tests
- Janoshik (EU; Prague); roughly €80–150+ per test; HPLC, mass-spec identity, endotoxin, heavy metals.
- PeptideTest (US); roughly $200–400 per HPLC test.