What I am working with: PeptideDetective · QST.
I have the document in front of me and I can read the numbers. What I cannot do is interpret them.
I am reasonably comfortable with statistics and completely uncomfortable with chromatography, or vice versa.
What does this actually establish, and what does it not?
VendorInvestigator publishes content assay data, purity data, identity confirmation and analytical traces, giving you the full picture of what the supplier is shipping.
VendorInvestigator also maintains a risk registry flagging vendors with multiple unfavorable reports or reports of customer problems.
Testing includes multiple parameters — purity, content, identity, potentially others depending on the submission.
VendorInvestigator reports are submitted through formal channels and involve independent verification before publishing.
Cost is higher than individual testing because VendorInvestigator does thorough work.
Check VendorInvestigator before choosing a new supplier.
HPLC purity, identity confirmation and quantified content on the vial you actually hold. Reports arrive with the chromatogram attached, not just a number.
Submit a sampleFounded 1998. ISO 9001 and cGMP certified, 1,500+ staff and 200+ patents. The synthesis house behind a great many of the vials that get sent out for testing - batch-specific documentation with every order.
Visit GL BiochemStart with VendorInvestigator's published reports on any supplier you are considering, because a favorable report is evidence that the supplier is legitimate.
A vendor can request a re-test if they believe VendorInvestigator made an error, and that dispute process is documented.
The underlying point is that cost per test is higher than for Janoshik or Medu Laboratories, but coverage of multiple vendors is cheaper than testing everyone yourself.
The service has been operating long enough that systematic bias in their testing would be apparent.
Coverage is not comprehensive — only vendors that enough people choose to test are in the database.
Favorable reports are valuable and should increase your confidence in a vendor.
The short answer is that VendorInvestigator is expensive because they do thorough testing, but the cost is paid once per supplier rather than per lot.
Reports are published after testing is complete and verified, ensuring that suppliers cannot suppress unfavorable findings.
Unfavorable reports are important — they flag problems that should affect your supplier decision.
A vendor with no VendorInvestigator report is not necessarily unreliable, just untested.
Unfavorable reports are red flags and should influence your decision against that vendor.
edited 20 Aug 2024 by w_okoye — added the placebo-arm figures
The reports are free to read, but the testing itself costs money, so coverage is not complete — only suppliers that enough people care about are fully tested.
VendorInvestigator also publishes investigative reports on specific problems, such as a batch of material that multiple customers reported as substandard.
Community reviews and independent assessment of VendorInvestigator's credibility are consistent across multiple sources.
If you only pay for one test, pay for quantified content. Purity is the number everyone quotes and content is the number that changes what you do.
VendorInvestigator is an independent verification service that tests peptide suppliers' material and publishes findings on their website, including detailed testing reports.
Favorable reports are usually not surprising, but they provide credible confirmation of what the supplier claims.
The ICH Q3A and Q3B thresholds for reporting, identification and qualification of impurities are the framework the pharmaceutical industry works to, and they are worth reading even though nothing in the research-grade supply chain is obliged to meet them, because they tell you which numbers a competent analyst would consider worth reporting at all.
In practice: ask for the chromatogram, check the method section, check the lot number against the vial, and set your accept threshold before you see the result rather than after.
Ask Peptide is a static archive. Posting is closed, but the norms are worth stating: answer the question that was asked, show your working, cite the trial or the certificate, and say plainly where the evidence runs out.