Key Takeaways
- •Canadian law treats peptides intended to affect body function as drugs under the Food and Drugs Act, and Health Canada stated in April 2026 that "research use only" labelling does not exempt a product from that framework. Understand this before you understand anything else.
- •There are three distinct grades of peptide material in circulation: research grade, reference standard, and GMP. They are separated by roughly two orders of magnitude in price. Most buyers are quoted the first and imagine they are getting the third.
- •HPLC purity is a ratio, not a quantity. A short-filled vial can be 99% pure. Ask for measured mass per vial and, where published, net peptide content.
- •Landed cost for a cross-border order includes tax above CAD $40, duty above CAD $150, and carrier brokerage that frequently exceeds the tax on a small parcel. A domestic Canadian order has none of these.
- •Chain-of-custody recordkeeping is the difference between a result you can defend and a result you cannot. Record lot, COA, receipt condition and storage history at intake, not later.
This is the long version. If you want the compressed vendor-selection procedure, read Where to Buy Peptides in Canada Online instead, which is the companion to this page and covers supplier evaluation in twenty minutes. For the regulatory side of the same question, what Health Canada has actually seized, and what its advisories mean for buyers reads the 2024 to 2026 enforcement record from the primary documents.
This guide covers the rest of it: what you are actually buying at a molecular level, how Canadian law treats it, what the different grades of material mean and why the difference is expensive, what each analytical test on a Certificate of Analysis can and cannot tell you, how to model landed cost properly, how to handle material once it arrives, and what to record so that a result you get in six months is still traceable to the vial that produced it.
It is written for people buying research-grade peptides in Canada for laboratory work. Volta Peptides is a Canadian supplier of exactly that, and we have tried to write the guide so that it is useful even to someone who ends up buying somewhere else.
What You Are Actually Buying
A peptide is a chain of amino acids linked by peptide bonds, conventionally counted as short: from two residues up to around fifty, above which the term protein takes over. That size band matters because it sits in a useful window. Long enough to fold into a shape that binds a receptor with specificity, short enough to be made reliably by chemical synthesis rather than by an expression system.
Almost everything in this market is made by solid-phase peptide synthesis, developed by Bruce Merrifield in the early 1960s. The sequence is built one residue at a time on an insoluble resin support, with each addition requiring a deprotection step and a coupling step. The chemistry is mature and highly automated, and it has one structural consequence that governs everything about quality in this market: coupling efficiency is high but not perfect.
Suppose each coupling step runs at 99% efficiency, which is a good number. For a 30-residue peptide, the fraction of chains that received every single residue is 0.99 to the power of 29, which is about 75%. The remaining quarter of the material consists of chains missing one or more residues. These are deletion sequences, and they are the dominant impurity class in synthetic peptides. They are chemically similar to the target, which is exactly why they are hard to separate and why purification is the expensive part of peptide manufacturing rather than synthesis.
This is the reason purity figures deserve scrutiny. The impurities in a synthetic peptide are not dust. They are near-identical molecules that co-elute closely with the target and that a lazy chromatographic method will simply not resolve. A supplier reporting 99% on a fast, low-resolution method and a supplier reporting 97% on a long, high-resolution gradient may be selling identical material, and the second one is being more honest with you.
Our sequence length tool and fragment mass calculator are useful when you are trying to work out what a cluster of side peaks on a chromatogram is likely to be.
The Canadian Regulatory Framework
The statute
The governing instrument is the Food and Drugs Act, which defines a drug broadly: substances manufactured, sold or represented for use in the diagnosis, treatment, mitigation or prevention of a disease, or for restoring, correcting or modifying organic functions. That last clause is the operative one. It captures a compound not by its chemistry but by what it is sold or represented as doing.
A drug legally marketed in Canada carries a Drug Identification Number, issued after Health Canada has reviewed a submission for safety, efficacy and quality. You can look up any DIN yourself in Health Canada's Drug Product Database. Injectable peptide products of the type discussed in this market are treated as prescription drugs, and the overwhelming majority carry no DIN.
What Health Canada has actually said
The regulator's position has been stated publicly and recently, which makes this one of the few areas where you do not need to rely on interpretation.
| Date | Advisory | What it establishes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 August 2025 | Unauthorized injectable peptide drugs seized from a vendor trading as Canada Peptide | Health Canada names individual vendors publicly and seizes stock |
| 9 April 2026 | Public advisory on peptides bought online, listing BPC-157, CJC-1295, DSIP, epitalon, GHK-Cu, HCG, ipamorelin, KPV, melanotan I and II, MOTS-c, NAD+, SS-31, TB-500 and retatrutide | Names the specific compound set, states that "research use only" labelling does not make products legal or exempt from regulatory requirements, and confirms Health Canada is working with CBSA to intercept shipments |
| Ongoing | Further advisories naming clinics and websites, including operations in Alberta and vendors trading under research-sounding names | The enforcement pattern is continuing rather than one-off |
Two things follow from this that are worth stating plainly, because vendor marketing tends to elide both.
First, the "research use only" designation is a description of intended application, not a legal exemption. Health Canada has said so in the plainest available language. A supplier who tells you the RUO label makes a product legal to import for personal use is either mistaken or lying, and either way you should weigh that against everything else they have told you.
Second, the enforcement mechanism is at the border, in cooperation with CBSA. That is a specific, addressable risk rather than an abstract one, and it is the reason the domestic-versus-cross-border distinction in the logistics section below is the most consequential decision in this whole guide.
Our regulations hub covers the country-by-country picture, the Canada page goes deeper on the domestic framework, the regulatory status checker gives per-compound status, and the recall tracker surfaces published advisories.
Three Grades of Material
The word "peptide" is doing a lot of work in a price comparison, because it is used for three quite different products.
| Research grade | Reference standard | GMP | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typical purity | 95 to 99%+ by HPLC | ≥99%, certified value | ≥99%, full ICH profile |
| Documentation | COA: identity, purity, mass | Certified reference value with stated uncertainty, traceable | Full batch record, validated methods, stability data, audit trail |
| Quantity assignment | Gross mass, sometimes net peptide content | Quantitative amino acid analysis, gravimetric certification | Validated assay |
| Contaminant testing | Sometimes water and residual solvent | Usually comprehensive | Endotoxin, bioburden, elemental impurities, residual solvents |
| Manufacturing | Standard synthesis | Standard synthesis, exhaustive characterisation | Qualified facility, validated processes, regulatory inspection |
| Relative cost | 1x | 20 to 100x | 100x and up |
| Appropriate for | In-vitro work, method development, screening | Analytical calibration, quantitation | Clinical and regulated applications |
Nearly everything sold online in this market, including everything we sell, is the first column. That is the correct grade for in-vitro research, and it is honest to say so. It is not the correct grade for calibrating a quantitative assay, where you want a certified reference standard with a stated uncertainty, and it is not remotely the correct grade for anything regulated, where you need a GMP manufacturer with a facility that has been inspected.
A supplier that blurs these lines by describing research-grade material as "pharmaceutical grade" is making a claim with no defined meaning. The term has no regulatory definition in Canada. Treat it as marketing.
The Analytical Package: What Each Test Answers
A Certificate of Analysis is a set of answers to specific questions. Knowing which question each test answers is what stops you from over-reading a good number.
HPLC: how much of one thing is in there
Reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography separates components by hydrophobicity and reports the target as a percentage of total integrated peak area. It is the standard purity method and it answers exactly one question: what proportion of the UV-absorbing material is the main peak.
What to read on the report:
- Detection wavelength. 214nm detects the peptide bond and therefore sees essentially all peptide species. 280nm detects aromatic residues, so a peptide with no tryptophan, tyrosine or phenylalanine is nearly invisible at 280nm. The same sample can give materially different area percentages at the two wavelengths, so a report that omits the wavelength has omitted the thing that makes the number comparable between vendors.
- Gradient and run time. A short, steep gradient compresses everything into a narrow window and hides closely-eluting impurities. A long shallow gradient resolves them. Run time is a decent proxy for how hard the method tried.
- The trace itself. Look at the baseline, at peak symmetry, and at what sits immediately either side of the main peak. Deletion sequences elute close to the target.
The HPLC interpreter and purity calculator will help you work through a report.
Mass spectrometry: whether it is the right thing
HPLC cannot tell you the main peak is the compound on the label. Mass spectrometry can. The observed molecular mass should match the theoretical mass calculated from the sequence, within the accuracy of the instrument: a few daltons on a routine ESI instrument, far tighter on a high-resolution one.
Mass spec is also where you catch the interesting failures. A mass 18 daltons low suggests a dehydration; a mass matching the target minus one residue's mass identifies a specific deletion. Our mass spec tool, molecular weight calculator and modification mass calculator cover the arithmetic.
A COA with HPLC and no mass spec is telling you the vial contains 99% of something. That is a weaker claim than it looks.
Water content, counter-ions and net peptide content: how much is actually there
This is where most of the money hides.
A lyophilised peptide is not pure peptide by mass. It contains residual water, typically 3 to 10% by Karl Fischer analysis, and it carries counter-ions from the final purification step. Trifluoroacetate from standard reverse-phase purification, or acetate where the material has been salt-exchanged. For a sequence with many basic residues, the counter-ion burden alone can be 10 to 20% of the gross mass.
Net peptide content is the fraction of the vial mass that is peptide. It is routinely 75 to 90% for research-grade material, and it is not a defect. It is normal chemistry that a vendor either discloses or does not. Two vials both labelled 10mg, both 99% pure, can differ by 20% in the quantity of peptide they contain, and no purity figure will ever show you that.
Use the net peptide content tool and the salt form converter to normalise between vendors.
Reported mass: the check almost nobody runs
Separately from net peptide content, ask whether the certificate reports a measured quantity per vial at all, or merely restates the label. A vial labelled 10mg containing 6mg is a 40% short-fill and is entirely invisible on a purity-only COA.
Every Certificate of Analysis in our COA library reports the measured quantity alongside the purity figure. The reports are from Vanguard Laboratory by HPLC-UV/VIS, and they show figures like 21.41 mg on a 20 mg vial and 11.07 mg on a 10 mg vial. Whether or not you buy from us, that is the format to ask other suppliers for.
Sterility, endotoxin and residual solvents: usually absent, and that is worth knowing
Research-grade material is generally not tested for endotoxin, bioburden or residual solvents, because those tests belong to a different grade. If a vendor claims sterility, ask which test and which pharmacopoeial method. If a vendor claims low endotoxin, ask for the figure in EU/mg and the assay used. A claim without a number and a method is not a claim.
In Stock and Shipping from British Columbia
Every vial below ships domestically within Canada with a batch-specific Certificate of Analysis. Supplied for laboratory research use only.
Semaglutide 10mg
KPV 10mg
Batch purity 99.7%
HCG 5,000iu
Epithalon 10mg
GHRP-2 5mg
5mg
GHRP-6 5mg
5mg
Cagrilintide 5mg
Sermorelin 10mg
Semaglutide 20mg
DSIP 10mg
>99% HPLC purity standard. Read the Certificates of Analysis.
See the full Canadian catalogueThe Compound Landscape
Compounds circulating in the Canadian research market cluster into a handful of families. What follows describes what each family is studied for, in the literature, without any suggestion that these are appropriate for a person. Health Canada named most of these compounds in its April 2026 advisory, which is a good reason to be precise about the difference between "investigated in preclinical models" and "established".
Incretin receptor agonists. Semaglutide, tirzepatide and retatrutide, spanning single, dual and triple receptor agonism at GLP-1, GIP and glucagon receptors. This is the family with by far the strongest published human evidence base, and it is also the family with the most counterfeit material in circulation. Our research hub and the GLP-1 learn hub cover the mechanisms. Products: Semaglutide 10mg, Tirzepatide 10mg, Retatrutide 10mg and 20mg. We also have a Canada-specific piece on retatrutide access and trial timing.
Growth hormone secretagogues. Sermorelin, tesamorelin, ipamorelin and the CJC-1295 analogues, studied for pituitary signalling via GHRH and ghrelin receptor pathways. The DAC and No-DAC forms of CJC-1295 differ substantially in half-life, which is a common source of confusion; the half-life guide and half-life plotter cover it. Products: Sermorelin 5mg, Tesamorelin 10mg, Ipamorelin 10mg, CJC-1295 DAC 5mg, CJC-1295 No DAC 10mg.
Cytoprotective and tissue-repair peptides. BPC-157 and TB-500 (thymosin beta-4), studied largely in rodent models of tendon, ligament and gastrointestinal injury. The published human evidence here is thin, and any supplier suggesting otherwise is overstating it. Products: BPC-157 5mg and 10mg, TB-500 5mg, and the BPC-157 + TB-500 blend.
Copper and cosmetic-science peptides. GHK-Cu, studied in dermal fibroblast and collagen models, and the multi-component blends built around it. Products: GHK-Cu 50mg, GLOW 70mg, KLOW 80mg.
Mitochondrial and immune-signalling peptides. MOTS-c, a mitochondrial-derived peptide studied in metabolic homeostasis models, and KPV, the C-terminal tripeptide of alpha-MSH studied in inflammation models. Products: MOTS-C 20mg, KPV 10mg.
For anything specific, the compound comparison tool puts specifications side by side and the glossary defines the terminology. The research literacy guide is worth reading if you want to judge the evidence behind any of these claims yourself, and the myths guide addresses the claims that circulate most persistently without support.
A Step-by-Step Buying Procedure
- Define the material specification first. Compound, quantity, minimum purity, salt form if it matters, and whether you need mass spec confirmation. Writing this down before you look at prices stops the price from defining the specification.
- Shortlist suppliers, then check the regulator. Search Health Canada's recalls and advisories database for each company name. This takes a minute per vendor and has the highest yield of any single step.
- Verify the legal entity. Corporate name in the footer or terms, checked against Corporations Canada or the relevant provincial registry. Then check the address on a map.
- Pull a COA before ordering. Not a sample COA. The current lot for the product you intend to buy. If it is not published, ask. How a supplier responds to that request is itself information.
- Read the COA properly. Identity, purity with method and wavelength, measured mass, lot number, report date, named laboratory. Verify the report on the laboratory's own site where a verification key is offered.
- Normalise the price. Cost per milligram, adjusted for net peptide content where published, plus landed cost. See the section below.
- Confirm the dispatch origin. Which province does it ship from. A vendor that will not answer this directly has answered it indirectly.
- Choose a payment rail with recourse. Card for a first order with any new supplier.
- Inspect on arrival. Photograph the parcel, check lot against COA, examine the cake and the seal, then store it.
- Record everything. See the recordkeeping section below.
Modelling Landed Cost
Sticker price is not cost. Here is a worked comparison for a nominally identical order, one domestic and one cross-border by courier from the United States.
| Line | Domestic Canadian supplier | US supplier, courier |
|---|---|---|
| Goods | $160 | $145 |
| Shipping | $5 flat (free over CA$250 / $200 USD) | $15 |
| Duty | None (no import) | $0 under CAD $150 threshold; full duty applies above it |
| GST/HST and provincial tax on import | None (no import event) | Applies above the CAD $40 courier threshold |
| Carrier brokerage and disbursement | None | Typically $10 to $30 on a small parcel |
| Referral and hold risk | None | Real, and unrecoverable if it occurs |
| Transit | 2 to 8 business days | 5 to 15 business days plus clearance |
The CUSMA thresholds are worth stating precisely because they are widely misquoted. For courier shipments from the United States or Mexico, Canada applies a de minimis of CAD $40 for taxes and CAD $150 for duties. Below $40, neither applies. Between $40 and $150, tax applies but duty does not. Above $150, the full range of duties and taxes applies to the entire shipment value, not just the portion above the threshold. Shipments arriving by post, or from countries other than the US and Mexico, fall back to a CAD $20 threshold.
None of that applies to a parcel that never crosses a border. That is the whole argument for buying domestically, and it is an arithmetic argument rather than a patriotic one.
Our cost calculator does the per-milligram work and the price index tracks the market. Our own domestic rate is a $5 USD flat rate with free shipping over CA$250 (or over $200 USD if you are browsing in US dollars), dispatch within one to two business days, and typical delivery in two to eight business days. Full terms are on the shipping policy page.
Logistics, Stability and Storage
Lyophilised peptides are considerably more robust than the market's cold-chain marketing implies. Freeze-drying removes the water that hydrolysis needs, and a properly lyophilised, sealed vial is stable at ambient temperature for the duration of a normal shipment. This is why reputable suppliers ship at ambient temperature without apology, and why a vendor charging a premium for cold-chain shipping of lyophilised powder is selling reassurance rather than stability.
What actually degrades peptides, roughly in order of importance:
- Moisture. The dominant pathway. A cracked seal or a compromised septum lets water in, and hydrolysis follows. This is why seal inspection at intake matters more than the temperature the parcel travelled at.
- Repeated freeze-thaw cycles in solution. Each cycle costs material. Aliquot once into single-use volumes rather than thawing a stock repeatedly. The freeze-thaw calculator estimates the cost and the aliquot calculator plans the split.
- Oxidation. Methionine, cysteine and tryptophan residues are vulnerable. Sequence-dependent, and worth knowing about before you leave a solution on a bench.
- Light. Relevant for aromatic residues, mitigated by amber vials or a box.
- Sustained heat. The slowest of the pathways for dry material, but the one everyone worries about most.
Practical storage: lyophilised material in a freezer at −20°C for long-term storage, protected from light and moisture, with the vial brought to room temperature before opening to avoid condensing atmospheric water onto cold powder. Material in solution has a much shorter usable life and should be aliquoted.
The storage guide covers this properly, the storage guide tool gives per-compound conditions, the solubility predictor and solvent compatibility checker cover getting material into solution, and the reconstitution guide with its calculator covers the arithmetic. The equipment guide lists what you need on hand before the parcel arrives.
Recordkeeping and Chain of Custody
This is the least glamorous section and the one that most often determines whether a result is defensible six months later.
At intake, record: supplier, order number, receipt date, lot number, labelled quantity, the COA as a file rather than a link, receipt condition including photographs, and the storage location. Thereafter record every removal from storage, every reconstitution with diluent and concentration, and every freeze-thaw cycle.
The reason is simple. When an experiment produces an anomalous result, the first question is whether the material was what you thought it was. Without lot-level records you cannot answer that, and the result is uninterpretable rather than merely disappointing. With them, you can compare across lots and often locate the problem immediately.
The inventory tracker and storage label generator exist for this, and the batch comparison tool is for the case where you are trying to work out whether two lots really were equivalent.
A Vendor Scoring Framework
If you are comparing several suppliers, score rather than argue. Assign each criterion a weight, score each vendor 0 to 3, and multiply. The weights below reflect how often each failure actually costs money, in our experience of the market rather than in the abstract.
| Criterion | Weight | 0 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Batch-specific COA availability | 5 | None, or after purchase only | Current lot published before purchase |
| Named third-party lab with verification | 5 | No lab named | Named lab with a checkable verification key |
| Measured mass reported | 4 | Label restated | Measured quantity per vial on every report |
| Analytical method disclosed | 3 | Percentage only | Column, gradient, wavelength, plus mass spec |
| Legal entity and address public | 5 | Neither | Both, and both verify against a registry |
| Domestic Canadian dispatch | 4 | Cross-border | Ships from a Canadian province |
| Payment rail with recourse | 3 | Crypto only | Card available |
| Research-use framing consistent | 4 | Body-outcome claims present | Consistent throughout, including product pages |
| Support responsiveness | 2 | No reply | Substantive technical reply within a business day |
| Price per milligram | 3 | Far above or implausibly below market | Consistent with the market |
A vendor scoring zero on either of the two weight-5 documentation rows should not be on the shortlist at all, whatever the total. Those are gates, not scores.
Common Mistakes
- Comparing vial prices instead of price per milligram. The most common and most expensive error.
- Treating purity as quantity. Purity is a ratio. A short-filled vial can be 99% pure.
- Assuming a .ca domain means a Canadian company. Check the registry and the origin scan on the tracking number.
- Accepting a COA without a lot number. It describes a batch you will never receive.
- Believing "research use only" is a legal exemption. Health Canada has said in terms that it is not.
- Buying the largest quantity available on a first order. Buy the smallest, inspect it, verify it against its COA, then scale up with a supplier you have tested.
- Paying by an irreversible rail on a first order. The saving on fees is smaller than the option value of a chargeback.
- Storing solutions instead of aliquoting them. Freeze-thaw cycles cost material every time.
Glossary of Certificate of Analysis Terms
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Area % | Purity expressed as the target peak's share of total integrated chromatogram area |
| Counter-ion | The salt paired with a charged peptide, usually trifluoroacetate or acetate; contributes mass but not activity |
| Deletion sequence | A chain missing one or more residues from incomplete coupling; the dominant impurity class |
| ESI | Electrospray ionisation, the common mass spec ionisation method for peptides |
| Gradient | The changing solvent composition over an HPLC run; shallower gradients resolve more |
| Karl Fischer | Coulometric method for measuring residual water content |
| LC-MS | Liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry; separates and identifies in one run |
| Lot / batch number | The traceability key linking a vial to its certificate |
| Lyophilisate | The freeze-dried solid; should be a compact white or off-white cake |
| Net peptide content | Fraction of vial mass that is peptide, after water and counter-ions |
| Retention time | When a component elutes; a reproducible identity fingerprint under a fixed method |
| TFA | Trifluoroacetic acid, standard in reverse-phase purification and the usual counter-ion |
| Theoretical mass | Molecular mass calculated from the sequence, compared against the observed mass |
The COA explainer, COA red flag checker and label decoder go further, and the full glossary covers terminology beyond the certificate.
Where to Go Next
- Where to Buy Peptides in Canada Online: the shorter companion, focused on supplier selection and red flags.
- The Complete Guide to Peptides in Canada: the research-side companion, covering HPLC against mass spectrometry, net peptide content, traceability and storage.
- Buy Research Peptides in Canada: the current Canadian catalogue with CAD pricing.
- Certificates of Analysis: every published batch report.
- Quality and Testing: our purity standard and testing process.
- Independent Testing Labs: who the third-party laboratories are.
- Counterfeit Detection Guide: physical inspection of vials and packaging.
- Research Tools: every calculator referenced here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is buying peptides legal in Canada?
Peptides intended to affect body function are drugs under the Food and Drugs Act, and injectable peptide products are treated as prescription drugs. Health Canada's April 2026 public advisory states that "research use only" labelling does not make an unauthorized product legal or exempt it from regulatory requirements. Material in this market is supplied for in-vitro laboratory research and is not an approved drug, a supplement or a food. Check any specific compound in Health Canada's Drug Product Database before assuming anything about its status.
What is the difference between research grade and pharmaceutical grade peptides?
"Pharmaceutical grade" has no regulatory definition in Canada and should be treated as marketing language. The meaningful distinctions are research grade, which is what almost all online suppliers sell and what is appropriate for in-vitro work; certified reference standard, which carries a certified quantitative value with stated uncertainty and costs 20 to 100 times more; and GMP material, made in an inspected facility with a full batch record, which costs more again.
How much does shipping and customs add to a peptide order in Canada?
Nothing, for a domestic order that never crosses a border. For a courier shipment from the United States, tax applies above CAD $40 and duty above CAD $150, with the full range of duties and taxes applying to the entire shipment value once the $150 threshold is passed. Carrier brokerage and disbursement fees are charged separately and frequently exceed the tax itself on a small parcel. Shipments by post or from outside the US and Mexico fall back to a CAD $20 threshold.
What does net peptide content mean?
It is the proportion of a vial's mass that is actually peptide, after accounting for residual water and counter-ions such as trifluoroacetate or acetate. It typically runs 75 to 90% for research-grade material. Two vials both labelled 10mg and both 99% pure can differ by 20% in the quantity of peptide they contain, and no purity figure will reveal that. Ask for it where a supplier publishes it.
Do peptides need to be shipped cold?
Lyophilised peptides are stable at ambient temperature for the duration of a normal shipment, because freeze-drying removes the water that hydrolysis requires. Ambient shipping is standard and appropriate. Move material to freezer storage on arrival, and inspect the seal, since moisture ingress through a compromised seal matters far more than the temperature the parcel travelled at.
How long do lyophilised peptides last?
Stored dry, sealed, frozen at −20°C and protected from light, lyophilised peptides are typically stable for years rather than months. Material in solution has a far shorter usable life and degrades further with every freeze-thaw cycle, which is why aliquoting a stock into single-use volumes on the first thaw is standard practice.
What should a Certificate of Analysis include?
Compound name, molecular formula and mass, lot number, report date, the named testing laboratory, purity by HPLC with the method and detection wavelength stated, identity confirmation by mass spectrometry, and the measured quantity per vial. Where the laboratory issues a verification key, check it on the laboratory's own website rather than trusting the PDF you were sent.
How can I tell if a Canadian peptide supplier is legitimate?
Verify the legal entity against Corporations Canada or a provincial registry, check the street address on a map, look up the domain registration date, search Health Canada's recalls and advisories database for the company name, and after ordering check where the first tracking scan originated. A supplier that publishes no legal entity has removed your route to recourse, which is a choice rather than an oversight.
Why do purity figures differ between vendors for the same compound?
Partly real batch variation, and partly method. A short steep HPLC gradient compresses the run and hides closely-eluting deletion sequences, producing a flattering number. A long shallow gradient resolves them and produces a lower, more honest one. Detection wavelength matters too: the same sample can report differently at 214nm and 280nm. This is why a purity figure without a disclosed method is not comparable between suppliers.
What records should I keep after buying?
Supplier, order number, receipt date, lot number, labelled quantity, the COA saved as a file rather than a link, photographs of the parcel and vial on arrival, and storage location. Thereafter log every removal from storage, every reconstitution with diluent and concentration, and every freeze-thaw cycle. Without lot-level records, an anomalous result cannot be traced back to the material that produced it.
