Cost depends of expenses of mfgr which differ radically due to a lot of factors. Trodusquemine has a couple of different synthesization paths one of which appears to be quite difficult and time consuming. The other seems simpler but is still complex. It would definitely be cheaper to produce in a country with fewer regulations like China than it is in countries with considerably more like the US. Labor is more here than in China as well. I might purchase from a lab in China if I were convinced it is reliable but I don't know of one.
No-one wants to incur the overhead of making something they can't subsequently control the availability of at least long enough to recover their costs and make some profit. A new molecule can be patented and thus protected but new molecules are very expensive to find and manufacture. A naturally existing molecule cannot be protected so a large company hoping to develop clinical application market will not invest in something they cannot keep control of. They may try to find an analog, and some may well be doing so now but that is long process of discovery followed by extensive testing and multiple levels of trials to get it to market and then it will be a prescription drug.
Not sure why a supplement company has not picked this up like Berberine was picked up by multiple companies but I suspect it has to do with a large enough marketplace to support the manufacturing costs and so far that marketplace doesn't exist.
I'd like to find a way to pursue Claramine though. It's available for purchase but untested on other than mice with no safety profile established. It's a simple salt of trodusquemine but I have no idea if that salt could have an adverse impact or if that can predicted. It probably needs to be tested and longer term toxicology tests take time and a lab.
I don't claim to be an expert but these are my thoughts.
Mike
I wish someone could explain to me the economics of why it costs so much to produce these substances. Is it something that can be overcome, or is it still inherent in the production process? It can't be entirely the latter because the Chinese companies have no problem getting the prices down by orders of magnitude.
Not to go off topic, but I'm looking into 2-HOBA for the same reason as this thread was started, targeting atherosclerosis. It is not a direct comparison because this is just a derivative of Buckwheat, and not a synthesized molecule. However, once again American companies are selling it at literally 100X the cost of Chinese companies. That is insane. China is a fairly wealthy country now, so it can't all be down to labor costs or even quality controls. Anyone interested in that purchase, feel free to PM me. Though it is much cheaper, it is still in the range where a group buy could be beneficial.