Chain of custody, and where it begins
Every third-party report in this market describes a sample somebody chose to send. That choice is outside the laboratory’s control and outside its records.
Janoshik Analytical
Page 4 of 7 of this archive, newest first.
The named comparison we promised two years ago
Two years ago we ran an anonymised version of this comparison and promised a named one. This is it, with every method printed in full.
The figure of merit this trade chose, and the four it did not
A market that competes on one measurement will optimise that measurement. There are legitimate ways to raise a purity figure that involve no change to the product at all.
Custody, condition and the temperature nobody logged
The condition on arrival is recorded by some services and not others, and it is one of the more informative lines in a report.
The column is a choice, and it is not a small one
We set out the parameters a method disclosure would contain, all of which are known to whoever ran the sample and none of which is commercially sensitive.
The sample is not the batch
A result on one vial generalises to a batch only if the vial was drawn in a way that makes it representative — and nobody records how it was drawn.
The impurity hiding underneath the parent peak
Where two methods disagree, the conservative convention is to report the lower figure. It is not universal, and whether a laboratory follows it belongs on the report.
Change the pH and the co-elution moves
An orthogonal method separates on a different physical principle, so that species co-eluting in the first are likely to resolve in the second. Two runs of the same method at…
How a claim degrades between the bench and the listing
Lot-level verification with a public report is a real and achievable thing. It exists in this market, on a minority of listings.
Six words a verification badge would need to mean anything
The Journal does not treat a badge as evidence and states so wherever it reports one.
Calibrated, qualified, accredited: three words that are not synonyms
An assay against a quantitative reference standard measures how much is present. Area per cent measures what proportion of the visible material is the parent. Only the first…
Where the solvent front ends is a decision, not a fact
Regulated pharmaceutical practice has explicit reporting, identification and qualification thresholds. This trade has none, which is why a purity figure carries no…
How a claim degrades between the bench and the listing
Lot-level verification with a public report is a real and achievable thing. It exists in this market, on a minority of listings.
The conservative convention: report the lower of two numbers
An orthogonal method separates on a different physical principle, so that species co-eluting in the first are likely to resolve in the second. Two runs of the same method at…
Why a result on one vial says less than the trade needs it to
What a laboratory can and cannot know about the provenance, storage history and representativeness of what lands on its bench.
The named comparison we promised two years ago
Two years ago we ran an anonymised version of this comparison and promised a named one. This is it, with every method printed in full.
The sample is not the batch
Chain of custody, in a regulated setting, begins at sampling. Here it begins when the package arrives.
Six words a verification badge would need to mean anything
Every step between the laboratory report and the product page removes information, and the badge is the last step.
The submitted sample: the weakest link in the whole system
The condition on arrival is recorded by some services and not others, and it is one of the more informative lines in a report.
A method is a set of numbers. All of them belong on the certificate.
Column chemistry, particle size and pore diameter determine what the separation is capable of before the gradient is even programmed.