HGH Therapy Cost (per month). What’s the Price of Injections?

HGH therapy is a medication of choice because it’s up to you to decide whether you would rather live with the symptoms of growth hormone deficiency (GHD) or return your quality of life to normal thanks to the therapy.

Statistics show that about a third of all patients with GHD are not using HGH injections which leads to progressively lower energy levels, worse body composition, and even shorter life expectancy due to increased risk of chronic disease.

Thus, the cost of HGH therapy may seem high at first, but it’s important to understand the value it offers. If you have GHD, legal HGH treatment can alleviate all your symptoms, restore your muscle mass, boost fat loss, increase your energy levels and improve your overall quality of life.

With that being said, our clinic offers legal HGH therapy at a reasonable price in combination with medical guidance.

What is more, our specialists will provide you with a personalized approach which can also help reduce the cost of your treatment. You will receive an individualized treatment plan, accurate dosage adjustments, and more.

How much does legal HGH therapy cost?

The average cost of HGH therapy per month can start at $550 and go up to $1850, depending on various factors. These are the 3 key factors:

• production
• quality control
• form and brand of the medication

 

HGH is produced via a complex process called recombinant DNA technology. The human growth hormone gene is inserted into the plasmids of a strain of Escherichia coli which allows the bacteria to synthesize polypeptide chains of 192 amino acids during processes of fermentation.

Then these chains must be modified by removing the N-terminal amino acid methionine, obtaining the 191 amino acids chain of human HGH.

The somatropin must also be purified and lyophilized in order to increase its effectiveness and preserve it during shipping and storage.

HGH that is manufactured in the US must undergo quality control by regulatory bodies such as the FDA which adds additional cost to the final price of legal growth hormone injections.

Yet, this step is crucial to guarantee quality and potency when the medication reaches you or another GHD patient.

The form and the brand of the medication is also a major factor that affects the final cost. Most brands offer HGH injections in the form of injection pens and cartridges for auto-injector devices which may add to the cost.

Many also offer vials with HGH in the form of powder, which must be reconstituted appropriately before use. Manual reconstruction also involves standard needles and syringes that add additional expenses.

Currently, some of the FDA-approved brands in the US which are also the most reputable HGH brands worldwide include:

• Norditropin
• Humatrope
• Genotropin
• Saizen
• Omnitrope

 

Norditropin is available only as a prefilled and preloaded device called FlexPro Pen and its price start at $1000 for the smallest 5 mg option.

Considering that the standard starting dose for HGH therapy is 0.2 mg (0.6 units) per day, this means your monthly costs will start at $1200 and then increase as you increase your dose.

Humatrope is available either as the HumatroPen injection device or in a vial for manual reconstitution. HumatroPen costs $900 when it comes to the smallest 6 mg cartridge option which would initially be sufficient for a month.

The monthly price of the 5 mg cartridge for the Genotropin Mixer device is around $550-1850 when taken at 0.2 mg per day. Alternatively, there are single-use pens called Genotropin MiniQuicks which can deliver a single dose of 0.2mg for the cost of $32 each which sums up to $960 per month.

Saizen is available as an 8.8 mg cartridge for the Easypod injection pen which costs $1150. When taken at 0.2mg per day, the therapy costs will start at $800 per month.

The 5 mg cartridges for the Omnitrope Pen cost $675 which is equal to $810 per month. The injection pen itself costs an additional $200.

Omnitrope 5.8 mg vials cost $575 and can be sufficient for a month at the start of your therapy.

What affects the price of HGH therapy?

Apart from the price of the injections, the initial cost of the growth hormone therapy includes a medical consultation and diagnostic tests.

That’s because HGH is a prescription-only medication and you may purchase it legally only if you have the medical indications to do so.

Consulting a specialist in endocrinology costs about $100 on average in the US. The medical doctor will evaluate your symptoms and assign you diagnostic tests which will help him determine whether you have GHD or not.

The diagnostic tests are also called provocation tests because they involve the use of medications that can induce peak GH levels in your blood. The most commonly used medication is the hormone insulin in a procedure called an insulin tolerance test (ITT).

The provocation test costs an additional $100 as it must be performed by a trained medical team and requires appropriate medical settings.

If the results suggest that you have GHD, your doctor will offer you to get an HGH prescription, which will not be associated with additional costs.

As discussed previously, the brand of the medication also adds to the cost of HGH therapy, despite the fact that all FDA-approved manufacturers contain recombinant HGH with the exact same structure.

That’s because each brand is associated with added costs depending on the different HGH formulations and devices provided for their injection. This includes different pens, cartridges and needles, or vials and bacteriostatic water for reconstitution.

Cost-effectiveness of growth hormone therapy

If you have GHD then the cost of HGH injections will be heavily outweighed by the benefits it will provide for your health. That’s because it is the most effective way to manage the symptoms of GHD and reduce the risk of complications.

Thus, growth hormone replacement therapy has high cost-effectiveness by preventing GHD complications that would otherwise contribute to reduced work capacity and additional healthcare-related expenses in the long term.

Patients who took HGH continuously also had better overall health status and reduced healthcare costs

Studies also reveal that when left untreated, GHD leads to a small but significant decline in the health status of the patients. The quality of life of these patients also progressively decreased over the 9-year period of the study.

By contrast, the patients who received growth hormone therapy continuously experienced improvements in all symptoms, including progressive improvement in energy levels. What is more, all areas of quality of life were maintained during the treatment period and were comparable to those in healthy individuals.

How much does HGH therapy cost with insurance?

Insurance companies in the US can accept HGH therapy as eligible for coverage, as long as you can meet their requirements and provide the necessary documentation to prove that you have been diagnosed with GHD by a medical doctor.

For patients newly diagnosed with GHD, insurance providers require at least 2 provocation tests such as ITT as part of your medical diagnosis.

The insurance company will usually cover your growth hormone therapy for 6 months, after which you will have to present medical records that prove the treatment provides ongoing benefits for the management of your condition.

Normally, insurance companies cover the full cost of the treatment but minimize their costs by adopting a preferred brand for coverage.

Unfortunately, insurance providers often change their preferred brands, which forces patients to switch brands in order to maintain their HGH therapy coverage.

Experts warn that such switches lead to problems for the patients such as having to learn a new device, mistaking the dose, lapses in their treatment, etc.

What is more, approval rates by insurance companies are relatively low when it comes to HGH therapy, and you may have to wait 2-3 months or more before you get either accepted or declined.

Are alternative HGH options more cost-effective?

Common alternatives to legal HGH therapy include unregulated or counterfeit medications, growth hormone secretagogues, and dietary supplements such as HGH boosters.

HGH boosters and similar dietary supplements lack any support in the current scientific literature to recommend them for patients with GHD.

In fact, trials report mixed results regarding their benefits even when it comes to healthy individuals who want to support their natural GH levels.

Secretagogues such as Sermorelin and Ipamorelin are other alternatives to HGH injections, which work by stimulating the pituitary gland to secrete higher growth hormone levels.

Yet, the medications are less effective than HGH injections, since patients with GHD suffer from pituitary damage which limits the function of the gland, even under a stimulus.

On top of that, these products are not officially manufactured by any pharmaceutical company. Sermorelin is usually produced as a compounded drug by small pharmacies while Ipamorelin is not even approved by the FDA for use in humans.

How much does HGH cost on the black market?

Unregulated medications which contain HGH are often shipped from overseas or can be purchased in other countries such as Mexico.

There you may find HGH products bearing the same names as the FDA-approved brands Norditropin and Genotropin are available at half of the original cost.

Similarly, the black market is flooded with HGH products that are shipped from overseas which offer low prices as their most appealing feature. They are usually produced in China or India and cost a third of the price of legal HGH injections.

While the reduced cost can be quite appealing, you should keep in mind that there is a lack of control over HGH injections in countries such as Mexico, China, and India, which means that the medications may be potentially counterfeit, expired or contaminated.

If the product is counterfeit or expired, it will not provide the same benefits as legal HGH therapy and you may end up spending more money in the long term. On top of that, contaminated products may put your health at risk.

Therefore, there is once again no guarantee that you will purchase a safe or effective product in order to manage your symptoms successfully.