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Was thinking about this the other day, anyone is aware why Human Growth Hormone is so much more expensive than Insulin to purchase? Where I live, the pharmacy cost is about 150:1 per IU !!!
Both are peptide hormones, manufactured via recombinant DNA technology using E.coli. So surely the production costs can not vary that much?
I guess we are getting shafted by the big pharma with this one :0happyhum
Not really.
HGH is much more difficult to produce, many batches ended being dumped, it has 191 amino acids while insulin is only composed of 51.
It's a good question.
But be mindful that insulin has been produced or exctracted from animal tissue for a much longer time than hgh.
It's not only the bacteria that's are to produce it, but isolation and purification afterwards.
Also,as BB pointed out, hgh is a much bigger peptide.
As such the gene encoding it will be bigger,and correct folding of the peptide being more difficult.
I don't know the specifics of hgh manufacturing (might look into it),
but IF it was easy, cheap alternatives would be afloat.
And in a sense is; hgh from china is less expensive.
But it requires very high grade of sterility, very expensive equipment, and manpower to produce hgh.
The only thing cheaper in China is the manpower.
So we can't expect hgh to become THAT cheap, yet.
The 192aa hgh analog exists on the market.
Why 192aa?
Without checking I'd say it's probably because it will contain the formyl amino acid that serves as a "start" codon in bacteria, (in eukaryotes its methionine)
Or rather, the amino acid is the result of the start codon in the mRNA.
(Every 3 letters in the DNA corresponds to an amino acid,
and there are 3 letters that form a start signal or "begin reading/copy here" called the start codon.)
So without proper end translational cutting you end up with the 192aa analog and not the true 191aa hgh.
(Id suspect the 192aa analog to be basically the same, the only worry being formation of antibodies by the immune system)
But an interesting question.
Good points guys, thanks for input.
So seems the relative novelty of HGH compared to Insulin and a relatively complicated manufacturing process (although we don't know the specifics on this) are two valid factors.
In my point of view, they still can't justify the horrendous 150:1 price difference. Perhaps going forward we can hope for this gap to start closing?
Perhaps it also has something to do with being a life enhancement v necessity for life. And so, there is less HGH on the market.
Can i summarise like this:
HGH can build up muscle cell and cut fat. It seems insulin has same functions. HGH is more efficient and effective product than insulin, but insulin is cheaper.
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No,Quote:
Originally Posted by Elvishk
Insulin doesn't perform similar functions to hgh. Some people call them both ANABOLIC, however this is misleading. A simple way to think about insulin is that it simply carries energy (glucose-the energy that cells use to create ATP) to cells. This is a process that occurs during the action that you could call anabolism i.e. building muscle.
HGH and testosterone are what people are thinking of when they use the term anabolic.
So,
Test and HGH promote anabolism, macronutrients are the materials used, and insulin carries them to the muscles.
Hence, all are associated with the process. One isn't more important in a way that can be ranked.
As the politicians say in Florida:
Great rides+lots of taxis+ no tourists do not feed the mouse!
...or...
happy= mun+fun+sun