Medutest result on a Xianning orforglipron lot lands 2.7 points above the supplier’s stated figure

An independent purity determination on orforglipron material sold by TFC has returned 96.6%, a figure 2.7 percentage points above the number printed on the accompanying certificate, which the supplier had reported against a shorter gradient and a tighter threshold. The analysis was performed by Medutest on a vial the Journal bought as an ordinary retail customer in January 2024 and posted unopened.

Reported figures across the set were: highest 96.6%, lowest 92.9%, median close to the midpoint of the two. Every report in the set stated a detection wavelength, and 13 of them stated an integration threshold. The Journal has asked the laboratory to publish thresholds on all reports as a matter of routine.

Purity became this trade’s single figure of merit because it is the cheapest measurement to obtain and the easiest to compare. Peptide content, which determines how much drug is actually in a vial, costs several times as much and is quoted as a priced addition by most of the twenty companies in the Journal’s dossier programme rather than carried as a standard release test. Sterility and endotoxin are separate disciplines again, and are neither tested nor claimed.

Dr Sirichai Boonmee, peptide chemist, Chulalongkorn University, wanted the wavelength printed. "A method reading at 280 nanometres cannot see a fragment that has lost its aromatic residue. That is not a failure of the laboratory, it is a fact about the question they were asked."

TFC’s dossier has been updated with this determination and with the company’s response to it. The dossier’s ordering box records the lead times, the minimum quantities and what a buyer should ask for at the point of order.