Rapamycin Cost
Let me clear some things up for people considering rapamycin (generic sirolimus). I am taking it and so are my dogs!! (I have a very open-minded vet who trusts my judgement.)
Dr. Green, a very impressive individual, gave me my personal prescription for sirolimus. I have a very good PPO (Blue Cross/Blue Shield). I took it to CVS, the affiliated pharmacy, and got a great price of about $2.90/mg. (Remember, you are only going to take about 3-6 mg/week.) With a PPO you can probably do this also. CVS wants to meter it to you with a month's worth of doses at a time, but that's just how they do things. You still have access to the full quantity prescribed.
With the prescription from my vet for my dogs, I was forced to take to the open sea. Armed with only a prescription and no insurance, the picture is quite different, but you can still get a good price. Cutting to the chase, I ended up at Walmart. The prescription was for 90 mg - price $1440. But wait! after presenting a coupon downloaded from GoodRX (that's right, just anonymously downloaded and printed) - price $396!!!! As my vet remarked, that's a hell of a charge for not looking around first! ($4.40/mg is better than taking a risk buying online, in my opinion.) Costco is pretty close to that price. At CVS/RiteAid, etc., you will pay vastly more.
You can't touch the original drug rapamune (Pfizer) unless you are wealthy or go to Canada. The problem with the online pharmacies is that a lot of them are scams. Just because they have a website doesn't mean anything. At least check to see if they have a brick and mortar location. Example: At one point I was excited by the online infomercials and wanted to take NMN instead of NR; however, when I looked up the reputations of the suppliers only one was unsullied, and on further investigation their brick and mortar location turned out to be a residential dwelling!
FYI, more than one company makes sirolimus. From CVS the sirolimus was made by Greenstone, LLC, apparently a wholly owned subsidiary of Pfizer.
Hope that helps some people who are considering rapamycin but think it might be out of their reach. If you know a doctor, great, but if you don't a visit to Dr. Green is worth the trip, and I live in CA! (round trip less than $300) Do your homework first and you will learn a great deal.
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Charles Grashow my pup and I just finished ours from ADC , and I’m about to order more . A bit more expensive than from IAS , but as i order other stuff from ADC, figured just would get the sirolimus from them too .
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angie4life
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Charles Grashow angie4life
What is ADC?
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Charles Grashow Charles Grashow All Day Chemist . Sorry for the confusion . Their product is “Siromus” and the tablets are 1 mg . each. Nice company to work with , as I’ve ordered for years from them .
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angie4life
Have you ordered any other product from them?
Are you using Dasatinib?
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Charles Grashow I do have a bottle of what I hope is dasinitib (Dasapro), that I ordered a few months back from IAS. Haven’t opened it yet , but sure do hope it’s got active product in it , after Steve’s experience with Profound’s RapaPro.
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Charles Grashow All Day Chemist
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Well, I found a new "solution" to my rapamycin problem. After the AntiAging store "placebo debacle" (I never did get that refund), I thought I'd try again.
China.
I went to Alibaba, Dozens of "stores" sell rapamycin. I picked one that took a Mastercard. I ordered a 1 gram sample and waited. They sent 2.26 grams in error (usually they sell by the kilo so obviously were not concerned about a trivial weight difference) of what was claimed to be 99% medicinal grade rapamycin. The package was routed through the US and was opened and the sample split... There was a big DEA tape on the package... but I suspect they were looking for narcotics and found none.
It cost $100 US plus $50 shipping. I bought a jewelers scale, 2 lbs of lactose, then like "Breaking Bad", cut my 2.26 grams with the lactose. I calculated that 407 grams of my now diluted powder would contain a single gram of rapamycin. This is ~1/8th tsp of powder. I had been on it for 2 weeks, and got my trough level back today, 2.0. This is identical to level when taking the 1 gram of "Rapamune" at $10 per pill.
So, 150 for the rapamycin, $20 for the lactose, $30 for the scale. $200 US all in. I have 2260 doses of rapamycin. This would cost me $22,260.00 Canadian!
In my view, worth the bother. I would NOT do this without testing the drug, or blood levels, but is an option for those who can do some simple algebra and have a table-top mixer to compound the powder.
My kilo of resvratrol and a year of NMN is coming from the same supplier.
I hope this helps.
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Steve Roedde are you saying that you did get legitimate Rapamycin?
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Karl Yes! I take 1 mg per day. My serum levels were stable at 2ng/ml when on “Rapamune”. When I switched to the same dose using the 5 mg tabs from the AAS, my levels were zero. When the dose was doubled... still zero. So that product contained no Rapamycin. Using 1 mg of my self-compounded drug it is again 2ng/ml.
I must conclude that the 2.26g purchased from China is indeed 99% Rapamycin as advertised. The cost worked out to ~$0.11 per 1 mg dose.
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Steve Roedde
Great post Steve. Thanks for sharing.
Now we see also the profit levels being made by some of these pharmacies....
May I ask what exact blood test are you running? Can you get it through Life Extension?
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BobM
There is a listed company in Bangladesh called Beacon Pharmaceuticals Limited. They claim to distribute dasatinib to all corners of the world, (through direct selling). it is far from as cheap as buying directly from china but much better pricing then when dasatinib is bought through a western medical system.
https://www.beaconpharma.com.bd/
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Steve Roedde
What is the contact information for your Chinese source of rapamycin?
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JGC I think this is the link. You can request a 1-2 gram "sample". I can't vouch for anything you receive, but what they sent me was pure rapamycin. They take a credit card. Alibaba is like the wholesale version of Aliexpress... which is in turn like Amazon... but bigger. There are dozens of suppliers... Like Amazon, they live and die by reviews, and the platform punishes companies who fall below acceptable standards. https://hhdpharm.en.alibaba.com/?spm=a2756.trade-order-list.0.0.470c76e9LegZJo&tracelog=from_orderlist_company
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Steve Roedde that is a great find assuming there are no significant contaminants. Several other interesting products they sell. I’m always a bit leery of Chinese and Indian products.
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Steve Roedde
OK, that link takes me to Wuhan Hengheda Pharma Co. Limited. They do seem to sell Rapamycin powder for $1-5 per gram in minimum lots of 100 grams. I used their messaging system to inquire about obtaining a sample of a few grams, but I have not yet received a reply. Is that the correct outfit and is that what you did?
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JGC Yes, but read Brin's comment on the "Sources for inexpensive prescription Rapamycin" thread. Testing any product in some fashion is really important. He identified a company that will test.... earlier in the thread I think. Around $200 I think.
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Steve Roedde
Good stuff Steve! much appreciated. Just bought 3 Rapa-Pro Rapamycin 12 x 3.25mg @ $79.99 ea.with $50 wire fee from AAS. Just sent the payment yesterday! Sounds like I bought a can of Philadelphia air. Wasn't aware of "placebo debacle"
Can't find Brin's comment on the "Sources for inexpensive prescription Rapamycin" thread. Where exactly on the site is it? Followed your Alibaba link.
Also just purchased yesterday 30 x 100mg Dasatinib from Beacon Medicare Ltd. in Bangladesh AKA Beacon Pharmaceuticals for $220 plus $65 Shipping and $50 wire fee. Not a bad price for dasatinib if it's legit, not sure if it matters but it is from China, Alibaba has much better prices though.
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Gary Gilley I suspect that the AAS has cleaned things up... and now say their 5 mg pills contains 3.5 mg. I can’t recall where the post was. He listed a company that will test medications for purity... and said he’d post his results when they came in. I think it’s worth the $200 it costs... particularly if, like me, you buy >2000 doses.
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Steve Roedde - thanks again Steve, definitely worth the cost whatever it is. I live in the Baltimore, DC area so I shouldn't have much trouble finding someone local for that. Any ideas on types of dry powder blenders for mixing pharmaceuticals, found a few in the 5 - 6 hundred dollar range. Still like your DYI approach. or did you sub that part out?
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Gary Gilley , nope, a home mixer. I did the first few by hand (my 2g rapamycin with 8-10g pf lactose... in a steel bowl, with low humidity. I took a ton of time with this and the next dilution, because the active drug really needs to be evenly dispersed. Once I had added all of my lactose and mixed it by hand... I just added it to the mixer, covered it in a big bag to keep any dust confined and turned it on as low as it would go. The bulk of it is in the freezer, with a month's worth is on the counter in a glass jar.
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Steve Roedde
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Steve Roedde I don't know if it would be feasible to do a group buy on some of these meds but it would make testing more economical and I think puts some of the companies that provide them in a secondary market on guard knowing that multiple users are involved and the quantities are larger. I know on some of the other forums for various health concerns purchases made, particularly from China, have very often been proven to be compromised in quality, or quantity of ingredient. Suspicion and diligence is warranted. Perhaps others will chime in on this. Please do post the name of a reliable company that would offer such testing or feel free to PM me i f more appropriate.
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Dorian Gray I really wish I could find that post by "Brin.".. because he mentioned the site... a compounding pharmacy that tests all of its medications if I recall correctly. Maybe someone else can find it. Apart form the recent bestselling book (which addressed a generic manufacturers in India), I'm not aware of much in the way of actual evidence of contamination...although I'm sure it exists. It is for that reason that I posted my lab results after my AAS purchase... one does not need opinions or hearsay... but rather information and evidence. As I said, there are a ton of manufacturers on Alibaba... and specifically mentioning that testing would occur...and actually following through... is likely better than assumptions... of any product from any supplier (beyond the relatively well regulated NA manufacturers.
I remain puzzled by the "I can tell its real...because I feel this... or that", given the placebo effect and human nature.
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Steve Roedde I don't think it would work legally to do group buys of what are prescription drugs in the US. It's legal (or at least tolerated) to import a three month supply for personal use, but more than that would probably be blocked by customs. A group could sponsor testing of a particular source.
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