Chemistry for Fun and Obscene Profit

What ever happened to the Alchemists? If you recall your history, alchemists were those medieval scientists who struggled in vain to turn relatively cheap lead into valuable gold.



You would think that with the advances in physics, it now would be theoretically possible to change lead into gold in a nuclear reaction – so why aren’t there any modern day alchemists pursuing this lucrative goal?

This is an easy one to answer. Gold is for suckers.

Oh, I suppose gold is near an all-time high. As I am writing this, gold is at $1,120.00 per troy ounce, which is roughly 31 grams. Some quick math shows that gold is currently selling for $36.00 a gram. While this is an impressive price for a tiny pinch of gold (just under 1/500th of a pound), it’s chump change compared to your favorite pharmaceuticals.

Let’s forget the fillers and binders that make up a modern pill, and focus on the active ingredients – the ones that do the job at hand. If we take the price per pill, and the weight of the active ingredient, it’s easy to figure out what these medicines actually cost per gram:


LIPITOR 40 MG TABLET @ 5.23 Per dose
Which equals $130.75 per gram

NEXIUM 40 MG CAPSULE @ 7.17 Per dose
Which equals $179.25 per gram

LEXAPRO 20 MG TABLET @ 4.00 Per dose
Which equals $200.00 per gram

SINGULAIR 5 MG TABLET CHEW @ 5.73 Per dose
Which equals $1,146.00 per gram

AMBIEN 10 MG TABLET @ 6.20 Per dose
Which equals $620.00per gram

PREVACID 30 MG CAPSULE DR @ 6.43 Per dose
Which equals $214.33 per gram

PLAVIX 75 MG TABLE @ 6.33 Per dose

Which equals $84.40 per gram

LAST BUT NOT LEAST, WE HAVE

LUNESTA 3 MG TABLET @ 7.97 Per dose
Which equals $2,656.67 per gram



That’s why no one is making lead into gold – it’s too much like work for too little money!

So 24K gold is a downright bargain when compared to eszopiclone, the active ingredient in Lunesta. I am sure that eszopiclone is a difficult ancomplex chemical to manufacture, but why should it cost more then 73 times the cost of gold, one of the most valuable elements o the face of the planet?

Or let’s put this another way…you’re paying $74,368.00 – the price of a very nice luxury car – for just one ounce of the active ingredient in Lunesta, or just under 1.3 million dollars for a pound of the stuff. Or let’s imagine taking a flour bag off of your local supermarket shelf and refilling it the eszopiclone – this is an easy way for you to visualize quantity. That flour bag full of eszopiclone would run you around 6 MILLION DOLLARS. This is for a pill that helps you fall asleep. I hope that this insight doesn’t keep you up at night…

So, what did happen to the Alchemists? According to Wikipedia: “An alchemist was a person versed in the art of alchemy, an ancient branch of natural philosophy that eventually evolved into chemistry and pharmacology”.

Did they say pharmacology? Mystery solved!

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