Concretely, thermal history during shipping is different for every vial, so a lot that experienced thermal abuse may have internal variation even if it was originally homogeneous.
Testing a vial that has been open in the lab for three months is testing aged material, not the fresh lot, and the result should be explicitly noted as a retest.
The ICH Q3A and Q3B thresholds for reporting, identification and qualification of impurities are the framework the pharmaceutical industry works to, and they are worth reading even though nothing in the research-grade supply chain is obliged to meet them, because they tell you which numbers a competent analyst would consider worth reporting at all.
The caveat is that sampling is a trade-off between cost and confidence, and neither test nor assumption is cost-free.
If you only pay for one test, pay for quantified content. Purity is the number everyone quotes and content is the number that changes what you do.
8Adding a vote because this deserves more of them. – lane_transit 2 months ago add a comment