PeptideStack
5.2kquestions
20kanswers
220users

How do I read an impurity table on an orforglipron certificate against the 95.2% headline?

Asked 14 Feb 2026Modified 3 months agoViewed 3.3k times
16

What I am working with: orforglipron · 95.2%.

I have worked this out and I would like someone to find the error, because I suspect there is one.

My working so far, for the record, is below, and I am fairly sure the error is in the unit conversion rather than the algebra.

How many significant figures are actually justified here?

purity
purity

Purity as chromatographic area per cent - the fraction of detected material that is your target peak. It says nothing about how much material is…

788 questions
coa
coa

Certificates of analysis: what fields a useful one carries, how to tell a real analytical report from a marketing document, batch and lot…

749 questions
hplc
hplc

Reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography, the workhorse purity method. Column chemistry, mobile-phase choice, gradient slope,…

466 questions
shareeditfollowflag
MF
askedmeniscus_film34k3814 Feb 2026

2 Answers

Accepted answer first, then by votes
86

Accepted answer

In practice, gradient slope is the most powerful parameter and almost nobody mentions it, which is why two reports on the same material disagree by a point.

Sample solvent strength affects peak shape — if you inject in strong solvent on a gradient starting in weak solvent, the solvent peak can distort your main peak or create a false shoulder.

It helps to be literal here: gradient slope controls resolution, and gentler slopes resolve co-eluting impurities into separate peaks — so the better method reports the worse purity number.

Published side-by-side method comparisons show that a two-point difference in purity on the same vial is easily explained by method choice alone.

Compare purity within a single laboratory on the same method, never across laboratories.

shareimprove this answerflag
NN
answered · acceptednine_point_nine45k13818 Apr 2026
Sponsored

PeptideMeter - Independent Peptide Analytics

Aggregated, published test results and vendor ratings built from submitted batches. Methodology stated, dataset browsable, no listing fees.

Browse results
33

Area percentage is not mass percentage, and conflating the two is the most common misreading of a purity figure.

Mass on column affects detector linearity and peak overlap — overloading broadens peaks and hides neighbours, while underloading improves resolution but loses sensitivity.

To be exact about it, mobile phase additive choice affects ionisation and peak shape — TFA gives sharp peaks but suppresses mass spectrometry signal, formic acid gives worse peaks but preserves signal.

If you are ranking vendors, specify a method and have all samples tested at the same place.

edited 8 May 2026 by plate_count_9k — tightened the wording; no substantive change

shareimprove this answerflag
P9
answeredplate_count_9k95k15829 Apr 2026
Worth adding that the method section is where the answer usually is. – jonas_ekstrom 9 months ago
add a comment

Your answer

Ask PeptideStack is a static archive. Posting is closed, but the norms are worth stating: answer the question that was asked, show your working, cite the trial or the certificate, and say plainly where the evidence runs out.

Not medical advice. Research-use-only compounds are not approved for human use.