Description

Up on the inspection altar today we have a sample submitted by a person that asks to remain anonymous but sent in a sealed sample in a blister pack of a drug called Modafinil. This is an oral stimulant for the treatment of narcolepsy or sleepiness caused by obstructive sleep disorder. It is also proven an effective treatment for ADHD. Problem with this is it's counterfeit. This is where we're gonna get a little technical so if you're not technically inclined just stop at the word bunk.

I had to look up this product here http://www.drugbank.ca/drugs/DB00745 and I was able to surmise that the Chemical formula for this product is C15-H15-NO2-S. And had an atomic weight of 273.35. None of that showed up on the spectrum test (page 3) so we zoomed in a little closer and looking at the elemental composition of the product Page 4. Here's what it had to tell us:

The job of the elemental composition report is to take the Calculated mass from C15-H15-NO2-S (our target) and give us all variances that are possible within the range set forth by the top of the page that contains all the parameters. Usually this spits out exactly what we're looking for and the two are compared graphically below, one in green and one in red. Well this time no match was found and instead of

C15-H15-NO2-S the closest match was

C15-H16-NO2-S

Yeah, it's got an extra hydrogen atom which makes it NOT Modafinil. You can see by the graphs at the bottom of page 4, top one is graphing what we say it is and the bottom one is graphing what it really is. The two are different.

This compound might work, or it might make you radioactive. It's hard to say, but one thing we know for certain is that it is not what it says it is. Whatever that compound is, is has a 5% purity anyway. That isn't necessarily a negative thing, orals are a weird beast in that the most of it is filler for ease of consumption and if the API (Active Pharmaceutical ingredient) was taken out, sometimes it would only be the size of a few grains of salt.