QUESTION about peptide powder volume and drug amount (salacious photos enclosed)

[Disarmer]

Hi everyone, I'm hoping to get some thoughts on powder volume inside peptide vials.

Long story short, I purchased some 5mg semaglutide from a source that does NOT have a presence on Meso. The volume of the powder looked quite small, so I compared it to a vial of 4mg semaglutide from QSC (a source that does post actively on Meso)




Vials 1, 3, and 4 are from this new source; Vial 2 is from QSC. You can clearly see the difference between the QSC vial and the others.

I contact the source and provided this photo and shared my concern, asking if perhaps I was sent their 2mg vials by mistake. The sales rep told me she checked the warehouse records and confirmed I was sent 5mg vials.

This is an exerpt from our brief exchange. I was wondering if anybody here has the background knowledge to know if this story checks out or not? Either way I still plan to get this tested and I am trying to learn something in the meantime.



I don't have the knowledge to know if this makes sense or to challenge her further so I left the conversation here. Can anybody weigh in if this explanation makes sense?

(Perhaps @janoshik can weigh in? Sorry to pester you about this but you've probalby seen more vials up close than anybody except for sources)

 

[Liska]

They are correct, you cannot tell the amount of API visually due to the potential presence of fillers in amounts unknown to you. While this does not translate to generic lyophilized semaglutide powder necessarily, Ozempic pens will give you an idea of how significant the amount of fillers to API can be in such a product:

"Each 1 mL of OZEMPIC solution contains 1.34 mg of semaglutide and the following inactive ingredients: disodium phosphate dihydrate, 1.42 mg; propylene glycol, 14.0 mg; phenol, 5.50 mg; and water for injections."

 

[Disarmer]

That's great insight Liska, thank you. So story is plausible and it's up to testing results to have the final say