Metabolic research compounds

Our coverage of this category follows the primary literature — preclinical and clinical, attributed and hedged, with the model stated every time. If a finding here is exciting, the write-up will say plainly whether human relevance has been established.

The incretin family sits at the centre of this category. GLP-1, GIP and glucagon receptor agonists are studied as single-, dual- and triple-receptor molecules, and the published work on each is at a different stage — some in large human trials, some still in rodent models, some barely characterised outside a handful of papers. A researcher choosing between them is usually choosing between literatures, not between products.

Alongside those sit the mitochondrial and lipolytic compounds that get grouped here by convention rather than mechanism. They are studied for quite different reasons and it is worth reading what a given compound is actually being investigated for before assuming a shared pathway.

We hold no analytical documentation for anything in this category. There is no certificate, no purity result and no identity confirmation, and the material should be treated as uncharacterised until your own analysis says otherwise. That matters more here than in most categories, because the compounds in it are the ones most often misrepresented elsewhere.

Before you order

• Several compounds in this class are the subject of active patents and regulatory attention. Confirm the position that applies to your institution before ordering.
• Lyophilised material in this category is typically supplied in small masses where a weighing error is proportionally large — plan the reconstitution volume before the vial arrives.