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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MAC Here is some thoughts on the Wuhan HengHeda Pharm Co. that you ordered from:
- They use a hotmail address as their main company email address
- They do not provide a company registration number!
- They are not listed in the Dun&Bradstreet likst of Wuhan-based pharma companies: Find Pharmaceutical and Medicine Manufacturing Companies in Wuhan - Dun & Bradstreet (dnb.com)
- The factory pictures on their website (https://www.hhdpharm.com/factory/office-environment-and-factory-scale) do not show any industrial manufacturing equipment or GMP environment at all!
- They do not provide a detailed address - I could not locate the location they show on their website (looks like a google maps screenshot).
I would stay away from this company. Lots of red flags!
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Chris Los China commerce works in many dark and mysterious ways; middlemen, resellers, traders, etc. It definitely appears "shady" to western governance standards.
This vendor was vetted (by repeated 3rd party Rapamycin testing) by another poster.
I have a local, low cost lab to do a Rapamycin analysis to confirm veracity. Only then will I proceed with bioavailability experimentation.
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MAC. Glad ol USA commerce is always upstanding and operates in best interest of all. No shady operatives here.
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Thanks, everyone, for this invaluable thread.
I will soon be running an N=1 experiment on myself comparing blood levels of sirolimus after taking, in sequence, with at least a two-week wash-out period between each test, under fixed conditions (exact same meals, meal timing, etc.), the following:
- Day 1. Take Rapamune. Test blood levels X hours later.
- Day 15. Take US generic rapamycin. Test.... ""
- Day 29. Take IAS's RapaPRO. Test.... ""
Not sure yet about the X. I'm thinking 24 would be best. Measuring early, at say the expected time of peak plasma levels (2 or so hours) would be useful, but possibly inconvenient (given my schedule), and difficult to time with the needed precision. If, for one test, if it ended up being 3 hours post-dosing instead of 2, that would screw up the results more than if it ended up being 25 hours instead of 24.Brian
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BrianMDelaney community experimentation, love it! thanks for that Brian, this test design will provide an important piece of the puzzle.
24h after taking a dose should still conveniently put you in the 4-10ng/ml range that standard tests will pick up (based on pharmacokinetics studies with 2.5mg sirolimus).
good luck and thanks a lot!
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BrianMDelaney , Have you had time to complete this test. I am very interested in the results. Thanks.
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Jay Orman Hi Jay. No, it's going to be a while, unfortunately. I've been doing other experiments, plus, now I'm out of the US for a month without access to the LabCorp sirolimus/rapamycin blood test.
I will definitely report on the results as soon as I have them! Depending on my travel, I would estimate I'll have the results by the end of June.
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The response from my rep at Zhejiang Multinpharma regarding negligible rapamycin in Chris Los's blood test: "boss, for Rapamycin we provide is for chemical research not for eating..."
Of course that is a non sequitur explanation of why 6g of 99% pure rapa powder didnt show up in peak level blood test.
I would really like to know if any of the other customers of Zhejiang Multinpharma have tested themselves or the products.
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chuck stanley very sad, my rep was also very defensive and even accused me that I ruined their PayPal account (they used the term dasatinib for the transaction and that got supposedly picked up by PayPal...I never used the term). I have had it with Chinese trading companies like Zhejiang and also HengHeDa - another Wuhan based trading company selling substances that they can never produce themselves.
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Chris Los I posted the experience on rapamycin.news.
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Chris Los
Did you throw away all your “rapamycin” powder? I guess I should toss what I still have left in my freezer.
Recently I was looking for a cheaper source of Ca-AKG, something pharmaceutical grade. I got a good price from another Chinese company and it looked like they were a manufacturer, Xi’an Bioholdern Industry and Trade Co. They sent me a COA which was ostensibly for the Ca-AKG quoted to me. Get this: they cleverly altered an official COA for Calcium Acetate Lactate and changed the heading and CAS number to that of Ca-AKG. It certainly looked authentic, but they forgot to change the chemical formula and molecular weight!
I see people on this forum still boldly moving ahead to buy powders from Chinese companies. I too would like a better price for MNM or AKG or spermidine. But Brin Chikovski was so right, “ I would only order product from China if you plan to have a third party lab test done when it is received - a lab that tests purity, and for common possible contaminants.”
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chuck stanley amazing! thanks for sharing. and yes, yesterday I disposed off all of my diluted rapa. It would have served me for 10 years if only it were the real thing. I keep a sample of the raw powder they sent in the freezer. Perhaps one day I am able to access a lab test...
So, let not greed turn us into desperate fools. no more orders from China. Will order generic tablets from India instead.
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Hello folks,
@chris_los @chuck_stanley @mac2, very sorry to hear about your experiences.
Chris & Chuck, $80 or even $190 for 10g seemed suspiciously cheap compared to what most folks have paid, but I didn’t want to give you bad luck by disparaging a source without justification.
Given the controversy around suppliers I thought I would share my experience to show not all sources from China are fraudulent.
Last summer I ordered 10g from Wuhan Henheda Pharm, based on @steve_roedde positive comments and his friend’s unintended assay by Canadian customs :) --
https://forum.age-reversal.net/t/63jmdc?r=p8hffp6
I wrote-up my experience ordering and receiving it here --
https://forum.age-reversal.net/t/63jmdc?r=p8hkxwg
I never had an assay or blood work done, but my experience suggests it is absolutely legit.
I had over-exerted and hurt my knee on a hike a year before. After 11 months it still had not gotten back to normal. I also had a weird weakness in my left wrist (literally hurt to press my hand to my face while washing it at the sink) and in my right elbow (would get a sharp, shooting pain from doing pull-ups). After about 4 or 5 weeks all my joint pain was gone. For the knee especially it was unmistakable, every night for 11 months it would get stiff and have a dull ache in the morning. Also, my range of motion was reduced such that I could only bend my knee to bring my heel 4 inches from my butt. Now the pain was gone and I had full range of motion, heel to butt. It was like magic!
My wife and I began taking 10mg/week in June. By the November, I felt safe sharing it with my parents. I had told them it helped my knee, but that was all I really mentioned. I said they should take 10mg/week and see what happens.
At Christmas we were talking on the phone (we live on opposite sides of the country) and I asked how the rapamycin was working. At first they were kind of meh, not sure, but then as I probed a little more my mother mentioned the pain in her left knee had gone away. She was a school bus driver and working a clutch pedal for years and years had given her arthritis in her knee which she’d just come to live with and accept. She took glucosamine with chondrotin, but it didn’t solve the problem. It just took the edge off the worst of the symptoms. So here she was, after four or five weeks the arthritis she’d been living with for some 20 years was gone. Magic!
The acute condition with my knee, which is what prompted me to take a chance on some unknown powder from China is solved. Likewise for my mother, which I hadn’t even thought about when I sent some to them to try. Hallelujah for that! Worth every penny at twice the price, which to be honest I would have gladly paid if I knew it was guaranteed to work.
On the other hand, the lesser, chronic conditions of aging: grey hair, hair on my ears, faint age spots on the back of my wife’s hands, I can’t say that I have noticed any improvements. The stuff that is easy to definitively measure has not reversed after 9 months. I had 1 or 2 grey eye brows last year and now I’d have to say I have 3 or 4. A few long, fine hairs coming out of my tragus are still there. My wife’s hands still have faint age spots on them. I’m 49 and my wife is 48. She is pre-menopause, but the average age of menopause is 52, so it’s too early to say whether it is or will make a difference for her.
Hope folks find this useful.
Steve, I owe you a beer. And a steak dinner.
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Liam_Cohen happy to hear that you observe positive health-related developments - whatever the causal mechanisms involved is. However, concluding the your Sirolimus is legit is not appropriate. Given the strong positive expectation bias, only a blood test or a chemical test of the raw material counts as evidence. Even a chronically toxic substance may create positive effects in the short-mid term.
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has anyone shipped Biocon Sirolimus from India to Italy? I wonder which EU countries are safe to get shipments in. I could do Austria, Germany or Italy. Any thoughts? Thanks!
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Chris Los Have had rapa powder sent in without problem to Spain. I could get tablets in US, but my hunch is it is impossible in EU. My powder was checked HPLC by a friend who has same problem in Canada. We both used same company. I have all the mouth sores to prove it is legitimate, and experience taking rapa for 5 years. 2nd. patient of Dr. Green
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Van thanks a lot; I have become hesitant to trust powder brokers. mind sharing your source?
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Chris Los He just posted this on Rapamycin News: https://www.rapamycin.news/t/sirolimus-3rd-party-analysis/1333
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Chris Los you may have found, as I recently have, that sirolimus powder is degraded in the stomach. Sirolimus must make it to the small intestine in order to be absorbed. So the fact that any sirolimus at all was found in your blood test makes me wonder if in fact the powder we got was real after all. I am buying some acid resistant capsules which dont dissolve until they reach the more alkaline environment. I remain wary of Chinese powders in general but I can no longer discredit that particular batch.
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chuck stanley My sirolimus powder from WHP in China resulted in identical trough levels to what I obtained when taking equivalent doses of "Rapamune" brand pills. I would concur, that if none found in blood, its the supplier that is likely the issue.
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Steve Roedde agree, clinical data use tablets that are just compressed powder - however, perhaps branded tablets have some form of stabilization against acids? not aware of that. chuck stanley my blood test did not show any positive sirolimus levels. but the test sensitivity limit means it cannot reject the possibility of small concentrations. but that does not prove the presence of sirolimus.
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sadly, I am still without any source of sirolimus, currently....:-)
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Chris Los I’m curious about the sensitivity limit issue. You could always get a blood draw at peak... the absolute value would be meaningless of course, but if none at peak... there would be none... in the product. Mass spectroscopy a better alternative if available.
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If you have access to inexpensive testing I could see using Chinese powders. But if the company is a trading company in that product, as most seem to be, then the actual manufacturer could be different with each order, depending on the best price the middle man could negotiate at the time.
In my case I feel much more confident with certain Indian manufacturers and I don’t mind paying a little higher price than worry I missed out on 2 years of the priceless benefits of rapamycin
