If you’re searching for bargains on the steroids market, you may come across some dirt-cheap pills and bottles from Biotech Pharmaceuticals. Don’t buy them immediately is our advice. Check first what they contain according to analyses done by the Italian Istituto Superiore di Sanite… or rather what they don’t contain…
According to the labels Biotech Pharmaceuticals is based in Sydney, Australia, but their products turn up everywhere. Below is a row of shots of Biotech Pharmaceuticals Oxandrolone. They come from DutchBodybuilding.com. [dutchbodybuilding.com 16 October 2012]
The photos were posted by a buyer who had wondered whether the product did indeed contain oxandrolone. He was suspicious. And rightly so, it turned out.
In the summer of 2012 an Italian government laboratory published analyses of 15 steroids that had been confiscated. Of these 13 came from Biotech Pharmaceuticals factories – or from the factories of someone making Biotech Pharmaceuticals copies. That’s also possible of course.
The researchers tested the following Biotech Pharmaceuticals products: Methandienone, Masteron-200, Oxandrolone, Nandrolone-200, Primabolan-200, Enanthate-500-ANDROLONE-200, Trenbolone-150, Oxymethanolone, Testomix-300, Propionate 200, Boldone and Testex Prolungatum 250.
Testomix 300 was one of the tested preparations, and this one has also turned up in the Netherlands. [dutchbodybuilding.com 29 March 2013] The purchaser of this product was also not convinced that the stuff was the genuine article. And it wasn’t.
The table below shows what the ingredients of the 15 preparations were according to the analyses. The shaded entries are the ones for Biotech Pharmaceuticals products. As you can see, none of them is what they are advertised as being, with the possible exception of Testex Prolungatum. Click on the table for a complete version.
This is everything we know about these substances. The Italians did not publish any photos or serial numbers.
A simple toxicological analysis of anabolic steroid preparations from the black market
Manuela Pellegrini, Maria Concetta Rotolo, Rita Di Giovannadrea, Roberta Pacifici and Simona Pichini?
Department of Therapeutic Research and Medicine Evaluation, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Via le Regina Elena 299, 00161 Rome, Italy
? Correspondance : Simona Pichini, simona.pichini@iss.it
Abstract
Objectives: A simple and rapid gas chromatography (GC) method with mass spectrometry (MS) detection was developed for the identification and quantification of anabolic steroids in pharmaceutical preparations from the black market. Material and Methods: After a liquid-liquid extraction of pharmaceutical products at acidic, neutral and basic pH with chloroform-isopropanol (9:1, v/v), the different steroids were separated by fused silica capillary column and detected by electron impact (EI)-MS in positive ionization mode. Results and Conclusion: The assay was validated in the range from 10 mg to 250 mg/g powder preparations and 0.02 mg to 200 mg/mL liquid preparations with good determination coefficients () for the calibration curves. At three concentrations spanning the linear dynamic ranges of the calibration curves, mean recoveries were always higher than 90% and intra-assay and inter-assay precision and accuracy were always better than 15%. This method was successfully applied to the analysis of 15 pharmaceutical preparations sold by illegal sources. In only two cases the content was the one reported on the labels. In the other cases, no substances at all, or steroids different from those reported on the labels or different amounts from those declared were found.
