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Comment by consp | Hacker News Reader

I'm no chemist but the stuff doesn't look too complicated. And noting the stuff used to cost far less ...[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triethylenetetramine

Translation of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triethylenetetramine#Productio... (with some personal remarks):

It's not easy to put that Nitrogens in the middle of the chain. Moreover, the method to produce it is to mix some smaller chains that have the Nitrogen in the ends of the chain and make them combine in a longer chain.

This produces a mix of a lot of similar chains with different length and number of Nitrogen. They have similar properties, so it is difficult to separate them. They use distillation. But at high temperature that Nitrogens like to burn, so heat the mix carefully.

Also, the mix you produce have a lot of compounds with the same "2D" formula, but they have a different shape in "3D". Some of the versions may have totally different properties, like been very toxic. So you must separate them too, and again, it's difficult.

Note: I studied a Chemistry specialization in the Secondary School, so I have some general knowledge about this, but I'm far from an expert in medical drug production.

Note 2: If you like this kind of things, I recommend to see the Nile Red channel in YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFhXFikryT4aFcLkLw2LBLA It's nice to see some easy and not so easy projects, and he explain the reactions, and the problems and pitfalls he found. (I don't understand everything he does.)

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Anyway, the difference of the cost of the medical drug and the chemistry drug is annoying.

As a chemist you won't even bother to do the synthesis. You just order it from Sigma-Aldrich. Currently it cost about 300$ for 100g.

Not a chemist but in NL S-A shows 33,50 eur/100g (ships today!)

https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/aldrich/132098?...

As I'm sure you know but so that others understand, that's technical grade, not pharmaceutical grade.

Interesting! However on Sigma-Aldrich website it says: technical grade, 60%

How do you get from 60% to 99%? Do you have to (for pharmaceutical grade)?

What are the remaining 40%? poison? harmless byproducts?

You can buy the 97% version. Then a quick analysis (IR specter, NMR) will give you an idea of the contaminants if they are not specified by the manufacturer. Based on that you can take additional step to purify the product (extraction, chromatography, etc.) to the required level. The yield may not be perfect making overall cost a little bit higher, but this is really basic organic chemistry.

Is there any law as to purchasing/producing unregulated drugs in the US? If not, I'm surprised some budding pharmaceutical chemist hasn't swooped in and started producing these sorts of drugs. You know, free market capitalism and all that.

All drugs are regulated by the FDA, even if a drug patent is expired you need to get FDA approval to sell a generic version, which would cost millions. The only way around this, is if you market your product as not for human consumption or make some obscure research drug and market it as a health supplement.

Of course the latter two eventually will get you in deep shit with the FDA.

But could you make it for yourself?

...or at least meet the legal definition of making it oneself? Like the "build your own AR-15" kits where 99% of the work is already done, but for insulin?

You can produce the drugs but very hard to get anyone to buy it, as your product is not recognized by pharmacies and insurance companies as legitimate. Drugs doesn't get bought in the US unless it is carried by pharmacies and pharmacies won't carry your prescription drug unless insurance covers it.

So it sounds that the solution to the problem is to establish an online pharmacy chain and make sure that you gain a good reputation?

I'm sure Amazon will manage to sell you counterfeit insulin.

All I'm thinking is that there's likely some very desperate people out there looking very hard for these drugs in a cheaper form, and with a bit of viral marketing magic from the pharmacist I don't think it would be a massive stretch to match the two.

It wouldn't be hard except for FDA regulations around manufacturing/selling drugs intended for human use.

Ah, so we should just get rid of those regulations and let the little guy compete!

Not so fast. Maybe the first new market entrants are motivated by altruism as much as by profit. They do everything carefully but charge prices closer to cost. Patients pay less and there are hardly any downsides, except to the financials of legacy pharma companies.

But by year 3 there are people who have learned that you can buy barrels of technical-grade active pharmaceutical ingredients off of Alibaba and make pills from them without any quality control in between. Sometimes the products are contaminated with carcinogens. Sometimes they vary widely in potency across lot numbers. In the absence of regulations, fraudulent and shoddy products become widespread. It would be like the supplements industry, except that people actually die if they don't take real prescription drugs they need (this is less common for people who are sold fake herbs.)

I assume you can't just manufacturer unpatented drugs and sell them as drugs.

You likely need to prove that you are producing a clean product, etc.

Similar to how there is regulation of you make food at industrial scale.

I don't believe so. There are foreign online pharmacies of various reliability that a good number of people use. Folks near the border go up to Canada as well. None of that is legal, but it's not enforced. I imagine the outcry would be too great.

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