Many people have read the book by Katherine Eban “Bottle of Lies” about the generic drug industry and their less than stellar record on product quality and in obeying FDA rules and regulations. If you haven’t read it, we recommend you do. You can read articles about, and interviews with, the author here:
While you can arguably say that this might be slightly less of a concern for medicines that you take only for a brief period when you are sick, the issue becomes much more significant when you take a medication for a chronic medical condition or - as in the case of rapamycin / sirolimus - you want to take the medicine the rest of your life so that you say healthy and active for a much longer than normal life. In this situation the product quality are important because pharmaceutical product contaminants can build up in your body over time to toxic levels.
Some contaminants, like nitrosamines, have been found numerous times in generic medications and are linked to increased risk of cancer. A recent analysis by Valisure - a leading pharmaceutical analysis lab / company - identified a type of nitrosamine called NMDA in a significant number of vendor’s batches of metformin, a common drug that people typically take for treatment of diabetes, but which is increasingly taken by people for anti-aging purposes.
Note: at the very bottom of the page of Part 2 of this posting is attached the full 4-page Valisure lab analysis of three samples of rapamycin from Biocon and Zydus (imported from India) that a person had tested last year. You may be surprised by the results…
I have a sirolimus prescription that I have been filling at CVS pharmacy. The manufacturer is Advent. Are pharmacy purchased generics any safer? Do you have any experience with this company? Is there any generic brand that is considered better? Many questions…
Hi, I’ve not heard of Advent before. From some quick research, its a little confusing - there are a lot of companies in the world called “Advent”. I think your “Advent” might be a private equity company that purchased the Eastern European generic drug subsidiary of the well known drug company Sanofi. Here is a news article I found:
There is also an “Advent Pharma” out of India - that produces animal pharmaceuticals - I’m hoping its not that https://www.adventpharmabd.com
As far as pharmacy generics any safer than than those purchased elsewhere - no, I’ve not seen any research that would suggest that your local pharmacy has any better quality generic drugs than anywhere else. The stores are just one of the many channels for selling the generics and name brand medications.
I think someone like Katherine Eban would probably tell us that we’re “probably” ok with the typical generic medication “most” of the time. But if we’re taking a medication for a long term problem (e.g. aging) we are safest, from a quality perspective, with either the brand drug, or a tested generic.
Thanks! So are there manufacturers you consider safe (or at least safer)? It would be great for this site to provide that info? Perhaps this author does?
They are a mid sized (for a pharma company) generic drug manufacturer - $1B in sales, 14,000+ employees. But its hard to find data about their quality reputation. You may check on the FDA website to see if they’ve gotten any warning letters from the FDA - but thats only a rough gauge.
