Is there a difference between western (big pharma) made growth hormone and growth hormone made in China?
Question:
Is there a difference between western (big pharma) made growth hormone and growth hormone made in China?
Answer:
Other than 90/10 price difference ratio, both are identical. Western big pharma corporations use exactly the same production procedure (recombinant DNA technology) and equipment as Chinese labs. Chinese laws regarding GMP and safety of medicine related products are stricter than those in the west.
The identification, purification and later synthesis of growth hormone was first accomplished by a Chinese pioneer Choh Hao Li. Nowadays almost everything used in the west is made in China (or Asia at least) - both the high quality products as well as the low quality copies.
Human growth hormone (somatropin) is a large and fragile, 191 amino acid sequence molecule with a molecular weight of approximately 22,000 Daltons. There is no room for differences. The substance is either somatropin or it is not. If the molecule gets distorted even a little, it will no longer bind to growth hormone receptors.
The reason Chinese goods are often seen as inferior is the vast availability of cheap copies of everything (clothes, electronics, etc..) which visually appear the same as original but are composed of cheaper, inferior material and are thus lower quality and less durable. With production of somatropin this is not possible. The necessary equipment to even create it, comes at a multi million dollar price, so steroid "bathtub" labs are not capable of making it.
The only somatropin manufacturing method which is still used today (both in the west and asia) is the recombinant DNA technology, where E. Coli bacteria are genetically modified to secrete human growth hormone, which is then isolated and can be either lyophilized (freeze dried) or stored in the liquid form.
While somatropin is in the liquid form, it is very sensitive to temperature and shaking. If not refrigerated and handled with care the molecules easily get destroyed. While in freeze dried state, somatropin is not sensitive to shaking and it can survive temperatures up to 45 degrees celsius (113 fahrenheit). Because of this, it is only transported in lyophilized form.
