Independent analysis puts a SGN orforglipron lot at 96.1%, against 93.2% on the certificate

An independent purity determination on orforglipron material sold by SGN has returned 96.1%, a figure 0.6 percentage points below the number printed on the accompanying certificate. The analysis was performed by Medutest on a vial the Journal bought as an ordinary retail customer in June 2025 and posted unopened.

Content by elemental nitrogen determination returned 86% of the labelled nominal mass, which on a 2 mg vial corresponds to roughly 4.05 mg of peptide rather than the labelled figure. The remainder is accounted for by counter-ion, residual water and residual solvent, none of which is visible chromatographically.

Reported figures across the set were: highest 96.1%, lowest 93.2%, median close to the midpoint of the two. Every report in the set stated a detection wavelength, and 10 of them stated an integration threshold. The Journal has asked the laboratory to publish thresholds on all reports as a matter of routine.

Purity became this trade’s single figure of merit because it is the cheapest measurement to obtain and the easiest to compare. Peptide content, which determines how much drug is actually in a vial, costs several times as much and is not offered as a standard release test by any of the twenty companies in the Journal’s dossier programme. Sterility and endotoxin are separate disciplines again, and are neither tested nor claimed.

"The figure is not wrong and neither is theirs," said Havel Novotný, independent laboratory quality manager. "They are answers to two different questions and the trade has decided to pretend there is only one question. Print the gradient and the argument disappears."

SGN’s dossier has been updated with this determination and with the date of the request for comment. The dossier’s "what we could not verify" box records the questions still outstanding.