[quote]Lorken wrote:
Ok, Adrenosterone, been there, done that. Actually taking 750mg/day of FAP’s 11-Test right now and plan on a higher dosage in a few weeks (1000+mg).
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My next two week cycle at 1000mg/day will cost me $85 plus shipping. Not cheap, but I’ve read a lot of good about that dosage, and even higher.
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Biotest, as usual, has put their spin on things. But I’m not convinced. Who is to say it’s more bioavailable transdermally?
Some compounds are perfectly orally bioavailable, like creatine, even though nothing has been proven better than CM you still see companies modifying it in all sorts of ways,(CEE, CAKG, etc.), just to give a reason for the overblown price tag.
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I think the marketing department asked themselves “what can we do to put a new spin on something old and justify a $125 price tag?” And transdermal was what they came up with, because it’s a wild card. Don’t throw a title at me.
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Just my opinion. Seems to be a lot of Biotest tunnel vision here. Thought I’d provide some perspective. [/quote]
I’m sorry but the logic, summarizable as “Since creatine is bioavailable orally and so are a lot of things, then how could 11-T be more bioavailable with this transdermal system?” is ignoring a lot of things and making unwarranted assumptions.
For example, the compound is not remotely chemically related to creatine; the better comparison would be to testosterone, as the structure is subject to the exact same first pass metabolisms. Or another far better (than creatine) comparison would be to DHEA, which has been shown to be much more bioavailable transdermally than orally.
Even your own figure of appropriate oral dosing being 1000 mg/day should tell you you are not right in assuming good oral bioavailability. What hormonal substance known to have good bioavailability has ever required such a dose?
As to what you think we do, I know you’re not right. Especially amazingly skewed from reality is the idea that we strived, or have ever strived, to come up with a way to meet some high price point. You’ve got things completely backwards and clearly just don’t know what you’re talking about when it comes to why and how things are done, but apparently assume you do.
This is not “throwing a title” at you, it’s simply how it is.
On your comparison with the FAP product, you seem to be implying that it’s far more reasonably priced. I wasn’t familiar with it, but now looking at an online retailer, I see that it “was” $49.95 for 60 capsules of 50 mg, which is 3 grams total. So that is $16.65 per gram. Knowing the price of the raw material, that in fact is a reasonable MSRP, barely above what the price would be for a common generic actually (given the materials cost.)
The 11-T Sports Skin Spray is $124.95 for 240 mL at 35 mg/mL, which is 8.4 grams. So that’s $4.88 per gram. Cheaper per gram than the FAP was selling for, and again barely above what the price would be for a common generic based only on the cost of the 17-ADR if it were the only materials cost, and it’s not (the penetration enhancer is a not-insignifcant expense also.)
So much for your theory we are gouging. Actually our price per gram is less than theirs was.
Now, for some reason the retailer I found is now blowing it out at 68%-off. I have no idea why such a huge discount, and it’s certainly unmatchable in launching a product or as an ongoing price (except if one wants to lose money.)
But let’s act as if this 68%-off price is the target to match: while not a workable target for a business to match, it makes sense for a consumer who can buy it for that to make the comparison to that.
So in this case, the blowout-price cost per 3 grams is $16.95. That is $5.65 per gram.
The minimum bioavailability improvement needed for 11-T to be more cost-effective is then anything exceeding (14.88/5.65) or only 2.6 times.
While there isn’t a blood test to verify it, comparisons have been made in-house between oral dose required to achieve a given level of stimulatory effect versus the amount required transdermally. I don’t recall the specific figures but they were certainly better than three times. At least one found it far more than that for him. (I myself can’t perceive it, and so was useless for this in-house estimation for internal information only, which is all that that was. Notice we don’t give a specific figure because the quality of information doesn’t merit doing so, if for no reasons other than sample size being too small and conditions not being double-blinded. But, as you put it, I digress.)
Or, look at your own figure: you’re going to spend $85 for 2 weeks at your planned dose of that oral. That obviously is $42.50 per week. A bottle of 11-T lasts 3 weeks at $124.95. That is, um, $41.65 per week. It seems like you just went into sticker shock from our bottle having so much more per bottle and lasting so much longer, and totally failed to account for those things and thus failed to come to the correct conclusion. Your implications of gouging are completely uninformed, un-thought-out, unwarranted, and off the mark.
It’s easy to assume that “oral must or probably does mean highly bioavailable, transdermal must suck, and the product I am buying at less per bottle must be cheaper to use for any given effect than this comparison product (with nearly 3 times as much material per bottle) at higher price per bottle” but sometimes the easy assumptions aren’t the way it is.
