Where can I get my generic prescription pill analyzed for contents?

July 14, 2009 12:31 AM

Where can I get a prescription pill analyzed for chemical contents?

I'm doing a little experiment. I recently ordered a generic version of my prescription drug from overseas for much, much cheaper...but I am a bit dubious as to the drugs actual contents. Currently there is no official generic of the brand name drug as it is still under patent - so for all I know I could be ingesting paint or dried toothpaste or whatever from India.

I would like to have one of my overseas generic pills tested against one of my brand-name pills to see if it indeed contains the same stuff, as advertised. If it does I would literally be saving hundreds and hundreds of dollars per year - so it is worth it to me.

Are there commercial labs that will run such tests? I am in Los Angeles. Could I take it to a med-student and have them run a mass spectrometer on it? Would that even be the tool used? Where can I pay to have the contents of a pill analyzed?

posted by jnnla to health & fitness (13 comments total)

I reckon Drug Detection Laboratories does analysis for ecstacydata.org though I'm not sure on what the logistics are to get them to test your sample.

Depending on the drug there may be a reagent test that might give you a mayb or better.
posted by Matt Oneiros at 12:47 AM on July 14

In the pharmacy where I work, a legendary story circulates about a shipment of Viagra that was being sold by online pharmacies at a discount. It was eventually discovered that they were simply sugar pills coated in "handicap-blue" parking lot paint.

I have no idea if you could find a lab that would do such testing for you. But my thinking is that each individual shipment from said overseas company would have to be tested. Even if the first four shipments DO contain your drug, the next ten may not. I may be biased, as a pharmacist, but I wouldn't trust any drug sources that are not certified and tested for quality, safety, and effectiveness by a government agency (Canadian, American, what have you).

I understand the cost issue - I hate the prices myself. If you haven't already, contact drug manufacturers, your doctor, and Google like crazy to find coupons for your drug. I know drugs can be outrageously expensive - but you could endanger yourself and wind up with a lot more money going out in hospital bills.
posted by keribear at 1:00 AM on July 14

I agree with Keribear that you should get every batch of pills tested if you go that route.

Now, I think that your best bet if finding a graduate organic chemistry student who has easy access to a mass spectrometer. Maybe find a couple and separately give them each a fifty to check your pills. If they all get the same results, you can pick the one you trust the most and ask if s/he would be willing to do it on a regular basis.
posted by snoogles at 1:50 AM on July 14

As to the deal from the last two guys of getting each batch tested, I think I'd probably not do that, at least depending on how they're packaged. It is common in India to get the pills in that foil blister pack stuff. It's going to have names printed on the back of who makes it, etc. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that most likely if they're all manufactured by the same pharmaceutical company, and are found to be good, they probably aren't actually putting fake stuff in random shipments that people buy. There are regulatory agencies in India, you know.

More likely, a scammer would instead be the actual website that's selling them to you, and wouldn't easily be able to replicate the packaging your good pills came in.
posted by floam at 2:10 AM on July 14

There's no generic of the drug here, in the US, but there may be generics available overseas where the drug isn't under patent, or where they ignore the patent. For a first step, look closely at the packaging and codes on the pills. These should match up with an established manufacturer and the correct product. That would at least give me some confidence that you're at least getting a legit product or a reasonably well executed fake. From there, a grad student with a mass spectrometer is a good bet as discussed above.

It's important to keep in mind though that this depends a lot on what the drug is. First of all, there are various legal questions about importing drugs from overseas. Since this is an FDA-approved substance, my understanding is that it's illegal to import unless you are an FDA-approved importer. I can't comment on whether this is a big deal (probably not, might just have the drugs confiscated from the mail if you get unlucky), but I can say that it is much more likely to be a big deal if you're importing controlled substances. Should said drug be a controlled substance, you probably don't want to mess with the DEA on this one.

Finally, some drugs may come in an time-release formulation to dispense the drug slowly into your body. In the US, the FDA requires generic drugs to meet standards for bioequivalency, meaning that the generic is absorbed by the human body in the same way as the brand-name drug. Even if your grad student pal identifies the correct dosage of active ingredient in the pill, there's no guarantee that it will be released the same way. For many drugs, this doesn't matter, but it can be fairly important for some.

If your income is low enough to meet eligibility, most drug companies have patient assistant programs. Google for the one for your drug. Depending on the drug you're taking, talking to your doctor/pharmacist about switching to a cheaper medication might be a solution. There's so many me-too drugs that offer little benefit over generic products. Don't hurt your health though and change to a drug that really is less effective for you or one that has unacceptable side effects. If you don't have drug insurance, talk to the pharmacy about discount cards that may chop off a portion of the cost so at least you're not paying full retail.

IANAD/P YMMV. Good luck.
posted by zachlipton at 2:27 AM on July 14

Should said drug be a controlled substance, you probably don't want to mess with the DEA on this one.

I think what's going to matter here more than if it's a controlled substance or not is what schedule it is. Nobody is going to care about your Schedule IV allergy medication, but narcotics may be a bit dicier (and a million times harder/near impossible to buy online with a credit card anyways).

Also, it's a pretty big grey area importing drugs. From my research, if you have a prescription here, it's perfectly legal to possess that drug from another country. Importing it is another matter, but It seems you are very unlikely to get into trouble or even be pestered, however there's a reasonable risk that customs will nuke your package. Because of this, a lot of online Indian pharmacies have policies to reship or refund your money if this happens.
posted by floam at 3:01 AM on July 14

Keep in mind that it is not just the chemical contents of a drug that need to be analyzed, but the shape of the molecule as well. With many drugs, it is the shape of the molecule that will bind to a specific receptor, even though the molecule itself is made of the same atoms as other drugs. The more complex the drug and receptor, the more important this shape will be. For instance, a molecule can be made in a left- or right-handed form, this is called "chirality". Same molecule, different shape, like two brass keys made the exact same weight and of the same alloy, but opening different locks.

In a classic example, one form of the drug thalidomide was good for motion sickness, the other caused birth defects. In the thalidomide case, some molecules of the wrong chirality were manufactured along with the correct ones, as a byproduct of the manufacturing process. The results were an increase in birth defects from the late 1950s to early 1970s.

So a simple detection test or spectroscopy may not give you the correct information. It all depends on the drug and what it is supposed to be doing. I don't know if your imported generics are held to the same manufacturing standards and purity as your domestic pills, but it is a risk worth considering.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 7:11 AM on July 14

*thalidomide was late 1950s to early 1960s, sorry.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 7:26 AM on July 14

Keep in mind that it is not just the chemical contents of a drug that need to be analyzed, but the shape of the molecule as well.

The identity of the molecule generally includes the shape, except when you're getting into biologics (proteins, etc.) which can be folded different ways. I suspect you're confusing the molecular formula (which may be the same among different molecules) with the identity of the compound itself. C₆H₁₂ can be cyclohexane or 1-hexene or a bunch of other compounds, and they do have different shapes, but chemists would not call them the same molecule, and a lab should be able to tell you which you have. (If all they can tell you is that it's C₆H₁₂ and nothing more, they've only done about the crudest test available.)

For instance, a molecule can be made in a left- or right-handed form, this is called "chirality". Same molecule, different shape,

Organic chemists generally would not call two enantiomers (i.e., the mirror image forms) the "same molecule." (R)-thalidomide is the enantiomer with therapeutic effect; (S)-thalidomide causes birth defects. An unqualified "thalidomide" would be used when the chirality is unknown, or you're talking about a mixture of the two, or the difference is irrelevant in a particular context.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:40 AM on July 14

I suspect that the cost of getting your pills analyzed will completely negate the cost savings of buying them in your first place.

Also, you'll need something more sophisticated than a mass spec - that will only give you the chemical formula; to work out the structure you'll need NMR or something similar.

Hopefully there's a specific assay for the drug in question so you're not trying to figure out what's in the pill but just measure the concentration of the supposed active ingredient.
posted by pombe at 10:45 AM on July 14

Thanks for the input so far everyone! To clarify...this is certainly NOT a controlled substance. It is an SSRI with no street abuse potential and while the legality of importing it here is questionable, the experience of others has told me that having the shipment seized in customs is the most likely outcome. I do understand the risks, however, and this is not something that I would normally like to do - but given my circumstances it is a risk I am willing to take right now (and hopefully not for much longer).

I agree with pombe that having the pill analyzed may indeed negate the cost of the savings...but then again you'd be surprised what the out of pocket cost is and hence the point of asking this question to begin with. Thanks all!
posted by jnnla at 1:19 PM on July 14

Currently there is no official generic of the brand name drug as it is still under patent - so for all I know I could be ingesting paint or dried toothpaste or whatever from India.

A lot of drugs which are still under patent in the US are not under patent elsewhere. This seems to be fairly common with psychotropic drugs. For some reason, the US patents were issued for a very long time whereas the exclusivity expired in countries like my own years ago. I came across a website a few years ago which lists which patents are still in force in the US that have long since expired elsewhere - I'll see if I can find it again.

What this means is that the generic you've sourced from overseas could well be manufactured in a first-world country to standards similar to those required by the FDA in the US. Almost all of the common SSRIs have been available in generic form here for years because the original patents granted here were fairly short.

This link is to our Pharmaceutical Benefits Bcheme website. If you type in the drug name, it will give you a list of all the approved manufacturers of both the brand names and the generics for that drug. For instance, typing in fluoxetine (the drug in Prozac) gives two pages of all the names under which the generic and brand name manufacturers make that drug for sale in Australia. Those are the ones approved for sale here by our TGA (the equivalent of your FDA). There's a good chance that your generic is manufactured to first world standards, but that the developer still holds an exclusive patent in the US.
posted by Lolie at 2:30 PM on July 14

Fluoxetine has been off-patent and available as a generic in the US for a while now. Not saying you're wrong, but the example you give doesn't demonstrate that.
posted by Gregor Samsa at 3:49 AM on July 15