Dang, first one not available in my location, NY, maybe not allowed to ship? :
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An analysis of the Chinese SS-31 Manufacturer Supply Chain (from Google Gemini Deep Research)
Pricing Economics and Arbitrage
The market for SS-31 is driven by extreme price arbitrage.
- Manufacturing Cost: The cost of custom peptide synthesis for a 4-amino acid sequence is relatively low, estimated at $3.50 - $4.50 per residue for crude synthesis. Even with purification and the cost of Dmt, the production cost is a fraction of the retail price.
- Bulk Wholesale: On B2B platforms like Echemi, bulk SS-31 powder is listed between $20/gram and $100/gram depending on quantity and purity claims.
- Retail Markups: When repackaged into 10mg vials for the consumer market, a “kit” of 10 vials (100mg total) often sells for $100 - $300. This translates to a retail price of $1,000 - $3,000 per gram, creating a massive profit incentive for Tier 2 traders to buy bulk from manufacturers like Sinopep or Youngshe and resell to the public.
Future Outlook and Conclusions
The supply of SS-31 (elamipretide) from China to the public is a robust, multi-layered system that has evolved to circumvent the limitations of the formal pharmaceutical market.
1. The Dominance of the Gray Market: Despite the FDA approval of Forzinity, the gray market will likely expand rather than contract. The high cost of the prescription drug and its limited indication (Barth syndrome) leave a massive unserved population interested in aging and mitochondrial health. Chinese manufacturers like Chengdu Youngshe and Wuhan Newtop are perfectly positioned to service this demand through the “Research Use Only” loophole.
2. The Tiered Quality Hierarchy: The market is strictly stratified. Sinopep and CSBio represent the high-quality, regulated tier, supplying the pharmaceutical and legitimate research sectors. Conversely, the “Wuhan Cluster” of traders provides accessibility to the individual consumer, but with higher risks regarding purity and salt forms. The increasing use of independent testing (Janoshik) indicates that the market is self-regulating in the absence of official oversight.
3. Regulatory Resilience: While U.S. legislation like the BIOSECURE Act targets large Chinese biotech firms, the decentralized nature of the direct-to-consumer trade—reliant on small parcels and mislabeled shipments—makes it highly resilient to trade wars. As long as the demand for mitochondrial therapeutics persists, Chinese manufacturers will continue to be the primary engine of global supply.
In conclusion, for the “public” seeking SS-31, China offers a spectrum of options: from the verified, GMP-grade products of CSBio accessible to researchers, to the cosmetic-grade offerings of Chengdu Youngshe, and finally to the consumer-ready vials of Wuhan Newtop. Each tier carries its own balance of cost, access, and risk, defining a complex shadow economy operating in parallel to Western medicine.
Global Supply Chain Analysis: The Chinese Manufacturing Landscape of SS-31 (Elamipretide)
Some providers mentioned (quality not checked):
https://www.echemi.com/produce/pr2104151105-elamipretide.html
Based on the research into their product catalogs and manufacturing capabilities, here are the direct product links for the leading Chinese peptide manufacturers that supply SS-31 (Elamipretide).
The companies are categorized by their market tier: Tier 1 (FDA-inspected, Pharmaceutical/GMP focus) and Tier 2/3 (Research, Cosmetic, and Commercial Bulk focus).
Direct Product Links for SS-31 (Elamipretide)
| Company Tier | Company Name | Product Name / Identifier | Direct Product Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 (Pharma/GMP) | Hybio Pharmaceutical | Elamipretide (Top Selling Products) | Hybio Elamipretide Product Page |
| Tier 1 (Pharma/GMP) | CSBio (Shanghai) | Elamipretide / Catalog #: CS35948 | (http://www.csbiochina.com/default.aspx?controller=%20Home&action=product_list&product_type=peptides&product_listing=&search_for=&search_key=&page=44&language=en) [1] |
| Tier 1 (Pharma/GMP) | ApexTide (Sinopep) | Elamipretide (API List) | (http://www.apextide.com/API.html) |
| Tier 2 (Research/Bulk) | Mobelbiochem | SS-31 (Listed under GLP-1/Peptides) | (https://my.mobelbiochem.com/drug-peptides/glp-1-agonists/ss-31.html) |
| Tier 3 (Commercial/Gray) | Hangzhou Go Top Peptide | Elamipretide (Bulk Drug Intermediate) | (https://www.echemi.com/produce/pr2104151105-elamipretide.html) [2] |
| Tier 3 (Commercial/Gray) | Chengdu Youngshe | SS-31 (Elamipretide MTP-131) | (https://www.echemi.com/produce/pr2506221007-ss-31-high-quality-ss-31-99-purity-white-powder-cas-736992215.html) [3] |
Important Sourcing Notes
- Custom vs. Catalog: While companies like GenScript and GL Biochem (Shanghai) are top-tier manufacturers, they typically supply SS-31 via their Custom Peptide Synthesis services rather than a permanent public catalog page. You would likely need to submit the sequence (D-Arg-Dmt-Lys-Phe-NH2) for a custom quote.
- Sinopep vs. ApexTide: Sinopep often operates its B2B catalog through its subsidiary brand, ApexTide. The link provided directs to ApexTide’s API listing where Elamipretide is explicitly listed.
- Platform Links: For Tier 3 manufacturers like Hangzhou Go Top and Chengdu Youngshe, their most active and public-facing product pages are often hosted on chemical trading platforms (like Echemi) rather than their corporate websites, which can be unstable or login-gated.[3, 2]
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Are you able to verify the output of these reports? I would trust very little from this and other reports when it comes to gray market stuff.
In addition, talks of "high quality " or gmp grade sources give people a false sense of security over what they’re buying.
I am busy contacting suppliers now, but beyond that not sure how to verify the output. I’ll try fact checking via other LLMs.
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I meant to post this here, but mistakenly posted it in the 92 year old physicist thread. I guess it applies, although not equally, to both discussions, so I’ll leave it in both places. RapAdmin’s forum is very roomy:
From Tom Benson’s presentations, the number of mitochondria are so greatly reduced in old age that any repair or internally generated increase would still leave a severe shortage. If your mitochondria are perfect but few, where does that leave you?
The Mitrix infusions would be meant to bring volumes back to youthful levels. As mentioned above, this would presuppose that the mitochondria made in the bioreactor were free of defects and stayed that way through the infusion process.
Kind of related, Harold Katcher’s E5 also needs to be infused in big volumes.
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I would love to be part of a group purchase please.
Questions for the experts!
My SS-31 arrives tomorrow. I will inject sub q.
I only know enough to be dangerous, so I’m here to double check a couple of things. Anyone please weigh in.
@qBx123Yk did you already check to see if this peptide is small enough to pass through a PES filter? (I assume you did but double checking).
I assume I’ll just reconstitute it with 2ml of bacteriostatic water?
I’ll use a tiny amount the first day or two just to make sure I’m not allergic.
I’m clueless on dosing.
How much are we recommending per our weight? (I realize it’s all a guess).
If the researcher used 5mg per day sublingually, I’m guessing that means 2mg subq for a small person is probably more than enough?
Should I do a high dose ‘loading’ phase? I assume not.
Pens:
I watched several videos on using the pen, and while I 100% believe they are better, I’m missing what is better about them. You still have to put a new needle on each time. You would have to let it sit out of the fridge for longer before injecting to bring it up to room temp…. All that seems fine, but not sure what the advantage or time savings is? What am I not understanding?
@RapAdmin I’m also interested in the group buy if you find something at a better price and that we get tested. In the meantime, I got 300mg for $215 to arrive in two days.
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Yep, it will, and most research peptides are between 0.5 and 5 um. Filter pore size is 220nm. You can choose whatever amount of bac water you want. The less you use, the more precise you have to be with your dosing.
I don’t know if there is a mg per weight recommendation, the only solid data I can find is from the trial, which is 40mg daily. Anecdotally, doses from 4mg to 50mg have been tried by people, with varying degrees of success.
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It’s faster. Dosing is easier. Sharper needle because the needle does not poke the vial, then your skin. The advantages are clear once you start injecting more than twice a week. I have never heard of having to let the solution be in room temp before injecting.
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I doubt anyone can find it at a better price, that is basically the best you can do. As per dosing. I agree that you should try tiny amounts first couple days. Then go all the way in, 10mg twice per day (doesn’t matter you are small), that’s how I’d do it anyways. I think it was said that it needs to be at a higher dose to have any effects. Some peptides are like that you have to have a certain dose, or anything less is kind of waste of money. My understanding is SS-31 is like that.
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The sharper needle never occurred to me!! I rarely inject, but if I do well with this, I’ll figure out the pens to make daily easier and less painful… thx!
On the temperature thing… this is great to hear… I was told with my repatha to let it come to room temp in order to make it a more comfortable injection, so I just assumed that is how everything is.
@Kelman thank you! I keep getting swayed by what the researcher is doing, so thx for your input
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iPENS do not need to be at room temp. The volume of the injections is so small it would not matter.
If you are filling a syringe daily or multiple times per day that is not the same as putting a needle on an already filled iPEN.
With respect to “I’m guessing”, aren’t we all to some degree or another with some of these interventions 
Any “researcher” using SS 31 sublingually should be ignored. There is no credible evidence it will work this way. So I would not use that as to deciding on a dose.
Body weight was not considered in the trials that lead to approval by the FDA, it was a single 40mg subQ dose for all participants. It is well tolerated even at much higher doses.
I started with 10mg 1 time per day for 5 days, not much response
Two weeks later
10mg 2x per day got a response.
I’m not sure if there is a “loading” aspect, I doubt it as it has a short half life of about 2 hours with complete elimination within 24 hours. That is why I was doing 2 doses per day, and possibly why the initial trials were IV drips over 4 hours with a very high dose.
Interestingly the increase in ATP seems to carry over for up to 7 days from a short course.
If I was going to do 1 dose per day at 2.0mg I’d want only enough SS 31 in 1 vial for 5 days = 10mg. Then I’d reconstitute with with 2.0mL of BAC water. This would provide me with 5 doses at 40 units per dose.
It is not super stable once reconstituted, it is recommend to not go past 8 days according to the developers. Of course influencers have a different opinion that matches their “convenient” vial sizing
So I only reconstitute enough for 5 days of use.
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Repatha is a monoclonal antibody, so they’re different (more fragile) and more temperature-sensitive. Peptides are different, and pretty study in comparison.
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Hi All, Nice detailed thread on SS-31. I’ll suspect this will get lost amoung the many detailed posts here. Glad/impressed to see Agent Smith posting about nexaph as a low cost source of peptides. PGB is a PIA and very poor inventory. There is one other direct from China slightly lower price then nexaph but an order of magnitute more difficulty in paying, crypto, and is shipped from HK. Nexaph is plenty good.Anthony Castor
The unlicensed health coaches that can be searched on youtube: Alex Kikel, Anthony Castor, Lessor: Chris Duffin. Hunter Williams was deplatformed off youtube but is still other sites, Jay Campbell has a good site: jaycampbell.com and his peptide point of sale has truely creative combos and new compounds like Klotho (you MUST reasearch using klotho supplimentation). biolongevitylabs.com
But I buy off nexaph myself.
SS-31: at the above high doses does have organ regen (kidney etc) in the hands of the coaches. BUT for anti aging especially when combined with other mito compounds: MOTSC, SLU-pp-332, urolithin-a (to a smaller extent) a more is better is not recommended.
Over stimulation of the mitochondria has a similar over stimulative effect as going hyper thyroid (symptom wise) possible one or all of: brain fog, lethargy, tachacardia, anxity. Meaning high combined dosing of ss-31, motsc, slu-pp-332 cause more negative then benefit.
For hormonally optimized, health anti-ager; Cycle these peptides: one week of 1mg/day ss-31. Can be somewhat higher. One week of Motsc 1mg/day, one week of sluu-pp-332 at 100mcg to 300mcg. Not the crazy dosing you might see. The above thought leaders do talk about protocols using each simultaneously but still M,W,F vs T, TH cycling. The body builders cycle per excersize day vs rest day vs feeding day. Very complicated to tune PER YOUR OWN BODY, no one size fits all, a dosing protocol of these peptides. GLP1 affects dosing and minimum effective dose, in that retatrutide can potentiate these mito peptides causing a working dose to be too high.
I take a maintenance dose of 80/20 retatrutide / tirzepatide at only 0.5mg / week in 2 doses!! This little is a perfect weight / comp maintenance dose to feed the brain/organs needed GLP1 (etc) just like HRT supplies the needed estrogen/testosterone to the organs.
Ipamorlan/tesamorlan upon waking, 300mcg, more gets wasted, and Ipa at 200mcg at night with DSIP, epitalon, pineleon… I toss in just 0.5mg ss-31 into my Ipa/Tesa AM dose. I to have moved to all pens…
THEN mid AM when I get to it. I do another 0.5mg of SS-31 + 200mcg of slu-pp-332 + 100mcg of 5amino1q (nad booster). On the weekends none of the above: I do 1mg motsc + urolithin-a 1gr.
Brain; another cycling protocol; just listing: dihexa, j141 (??), cms-121, *acetams, noopept, (the hipocampus booster ?? just on Sunday).
Alot of what I’ve learned can be filtered off youtube channels of the above folks. But deeper and more knowledge of new chemicals and discounts to exosomes, cell factor, klotho is off this $200/mo skool group: TPC ARMY
We are over the knee of the curve of innovations / day for health, health span. Especially in the grey chemicals market. New chemicals jumping straight from lab to health coaches self experimentation, clients of coaches then to us group members. Like whos heard of J147?? Its in a LVLUP brain product and several biolongevitylabs.com brain products and off a few grey sites and others…
Good luck to all, so glad to hear of this talk here, Curt
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Something had been nagging at me about SS 31 as I’ve read pretty much all the papers but don’t really understand all of it. The thing that had stuck with me was the infusion trials and the results from those.
I don’t think SS 31 is going to do much for a healthy person in the 30 - 40 y/o range but it appears to have some benefit for healthy people in the 60 to 75 year range BUT the evidence for that is based on the 2 hour infusion method with a high dose.
EDIT - Note that the effect of increased ATPmax lasted for about 7 days, I’d guess there is a downward slope on that. I’m doing my planned 5 day cycle and after that I’m going to do a 2 dose day (10mg x 2), once per week to see if the effect I noticed before is sustainable with a weekly dose.
So I’m going back to my initial thoughts on this one, if you don’t take enough you will probably be wasting your time and money
This is detailed near the bottom of the attached PDF.
SS 31 was administered by IV drip over 2 hours. (2).pdf (1.1 MB)
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Hi Beth, you find a good price if it is made and delivered in USA. Can you share your supplier?
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It’s not made in the US, and I don’t think anything is.
This supplier is pgb and the product is already located in the US, so you can get it quickly and ‘easily’ (depending on how comfy with crypto you are!).
I’ve only ordered from them a couple of times, so because I’m not a big peptide buyer, I find each time is a PIA because I can never remember how to use crypto and have to learn all over again:) But at the same time, I also figure the torture is also good for my brain!
It’s the semi blind leading the blind, so if you need help, pm and I’ll ‘try’ to help you… but do know it took me two days to make this purchase and a lot of swearing!!
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This is a reasonable guide for crypto newbies Crypto 101 for Gray Market Purchases :: Stairway to Gray
PGB also had a crypto guide, but I don’t know if it’s been kept updated, I know they had a redesign on the last few weeks or so.
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Would paying in crypto through PayPal be simpler?
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Simpler, yes. More risky, definitely. When (not if) PayPal catches you sending crypto directly to flagged accounts (as many vendor accounts are) , they will ban you from their platform.
What you usually do is: send from PayPal to your self hosted own wallet, and then send from your own wallet to the vendor.
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