CBG
CBG as an API, a reference standard, and what GMP CBG means
There is no approved drug anywhere whose active ingredient is CBG, so nothing on the market is a CBG API in the regulatory sense of that phrase. There is no USP or European Pharmacopoeia reference standard for CBG either — the certified material you can buy today is manufacturer-certified, from houses like Cayman or Cerilliant, in milligram vials. What Peregrine sells today is research-grade CBG isolate at ≥99.9%, with identity and assay on a certificate for the lot, from 5 g to 100 kg.
- Cannabigerol
- CAS 25654-31-3 · C21H32O2 · 316.48 g/mol
- API status
- No approved drug uses CBG as its active ingredient. No public DMF verified.
- Standard status
- No USP or Ph. Eur. monograph. Manufacturer-certified CRMs only.
- What Peregrine sells today
- Research-grade isolate, ≥99.9%, 5 g to 100 kg, COA per lot.
Can I buy CBG as an API today?
Not from anyone, if the phrase is being used correctly. Under 21 CFR 210.3 an active ingredient is the component intended to furnish pharmacological activity in a drug, and ICH Q7 sets what a manufacturer has to do to make one: good manufacturing practice from the defined starting material onward, an impurity profile qualified under ICH Q3A, stability data under ICH Q1A, and usually a Drug Master File a filer can reference. No approved drug uses CBG as its active ingredient, so there is no CBG API in that sense.
Several suppliers do use the word anyway. One states compliance with 21 CFR Part 211 and ICH Q7 for a hemp CBG isolate; another calls its material a cGMP-validated cannabinoid API. Those are claims about a manufacturing system, made by the manufacturer. Ask which regime, ask who inspected it, and ask for the report. A supplier who means it will have an answer ready.
Where do I buy a CBG standard?
From a reference-material producer, not from a bulk supplier. A standard and a bulk ingredient are different products with different accreditation behind them: ISO 17034 accredits the producer of a reference material, ISO/IEC 17025 accredits a testing laboratory, and the two are not interchangeable.
Cayman Chemical, Cerilliant, Supelco, LGC Standards and Restek all list it. What arrives is a vial of milligrams with a certificate, not a jar.
Neither pharmacopoeia has a CBG entry — no USP Reference Standard, no Ph. Eur. Chemical Reference Substance. That matters if a method you are writing has to cite a compendial standard, because at the moment it cannot.
What does GMP CBG actually mean?
It depends entirely on which GMP, and the word is used for four different regimes. 21 CFR 210 and 211 govern finished drug products. ICH Q7 is the one written for active pharmaceutical ingredients. 21 CFR 111 is dietary supplement GMP, a separate and lighter regime. ISO 22716 is cosmetics. A certificate against one says nothing about the others.
In this market, a supplier advertising GMP CBG most often holds NSF/ANSI 455-2, which is a dietary-supplement standard. That is a real audit and worth having. It is not drug GMP, and a formulator writing a pharmaceutical specification should not read it as though it were.
What does pharma grade CBG mean?
Nothing defined. There is no regulation that fixes the phrase, no body that awards it, and no test that confirms it. At its most generous it means the material meets a pharmacopoeial monograph — which, for CBG, does not exist. Treat it as a prompt to ask what the specification actually is.
What can I buy from Peregrine today?
Research-grade CBG isolate, specified at ≥99.9%, in volumes from a 5 g research cut to 100 kg. Identity is confirmed by HPLC against a qualified reference standard, assay is reported as % w/w, and a certificate for that lot ships with the material. It is sold as an ingredient, with no structure, function or disease claim attached to it.
Peregrine is working to supply all of it — API-grade material, certified standards and GMP-declared volume — at research and industrial scale worldwide, through its own patented synthesis process.
Buying CBG
Where do I buy CBG API?
Nowhere yet, if the phrase is being used properly — and it is worth knowing that before a purchase order goes out, because several suppliers will sell you something under that name. What exists on the open market is high-purity CBG isolate with a manufacturer's certificate. What does not exist is CBG made under ICH Q7 from a defined starting material, with a qualified impurity profile and a Drug Master File a filer can reference.
Peregrine's answer is to build it rather than to borrow the word: a synthesis route aimed at API grade and at volume, in that order, because a grade nobody can make a hundred kilograms of is a laboratory result rather than a supply.
Is there a bulk CBG API supply?
Bulk CBG exists; bulk CBG API does not. Peregrine ships research-grade isolate from a 5 g cut to 100 kg today, on a quote rather than a rate card, because price moves with the lot, the volume, the destination and the terms. That is the largest volume commercially available anywhere at this purity.
Volume at API grade is the harder half of the problem, and it is the half the synthesis platform was built for. A buyer planning a filing should ask for the qualification package by name — impurity profile, stability protocol, intended DMF route — and Peregrine will tell you where each one stands rather than quote a date it cannot keep.
Can I order a sample CBG API quantity?
The 5 g research cut is the sample, and it ships to a university or a registered facility rather than to a home address. It carries the same lot certificate a 100 kg order does, so what you qualify is what you would buy.
If the sample is for API qualification rather than formulation work, say so on the request. The material is the same; the paperwork that should travel with it is not, and it is easier to send the right documents the first time than to reconstruct them afterwards.
Who manufactures CBG API?
Nobody, in the strict sense — but the more useful version of the question is who makes the CBG, because that is where suppliers genuinely differ. CBG reaches the market by two routes. It is extracted from plant material, usually from a high-CBG chemovar, or it is synthesised. The certificate rarely says which, and the two carry different impurity profiles: an extracted lot brings companions from the plant, a synthesised lot brings companions from the route.
Ask any supplier which of the two you are being quoted, then ask who owns the site. CBG has the deepest bench of sellers of any compound in this section, and a good share of them are buying the same material from the same few producers and putting a label on it. Peregrine synthesises, which is why the impurity question has an answer here rather than a shrug.
Questions
I can find CBG API listed by other suppliers — is that real?
Those listings are real products with real certificates; what they are not is API status. A supplier stating 21 CFR Part 211 or ICH Q7 compliance for a CBG isolate is describing its own manufacturing system, which may well be excellent. API is a regulatory position that depends on an approved drug using the compound, and no such drug exists for CBG.
Is CBG an active pharmaceutical ingredient?
Not today. No approved drug product anywhere uses CBG as its active ingredient, which is what the term describes. Peregrine sells it as a research-grade ingredient and is working toward API-grade supply.
Is there a USP standard for CBG?
No. CBG has no USP Reference Standard and no European Pharmacopoeia Chemical Reference Substance. Certified material is available from commercial reference-material producers, certified by the producer rather than by a pharmacopoeia.
Can Peregrine supply a CBG sample?
Yes. The 5 g research cut is the sample size, and it ships to a university or a registered laboratory rather than to a home address. It carries the same lot COA as a bulk order.
Do you sell bulk CBG?
Yes, from 5 g to 100 kg. Price depends on the lot, the volume, the destination and the terms, so a person prepares the quote rather than a rate card.
Is CBG isolate the same as pharmaceutical-grade CBG?
No, and nobody's is. CBG isolate at ≥99.9% is a well-specified research ingredient. Pharmaceutical grade is not a defined term, and the compendial monograph that would give it meaning does not exist for CBG.
Is there a CBG API supplier I can buy from today?
No — not for the API part. Several companies will sell you high-purity CBG isolate today, Peregrine among them, and that is a real product with a real certificate. None of them holds API status, because no approved drug uses CBG as its active ingredient. Ask which of them synthesises rather than extracts, because the two routes leave different companions behind in the material.
Sources
- 21 CFR 210.3(b)(7)FDA's definition of an active ingredient
- ICH Q7Good Manufacturing Practice Guide for Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients, Step 4, 2000
- ICH Q3A(R2)Impurities in New Drug Substances, Step 4, 2006
- ISO 17034General requirements for the competence of reference material producers (paywalled)
- NSF/ANSI 455-2Good Manufacturing Practices for dietary supplements (paywalled)
- 21 CFR 111Current good manufacturing practice for dietary supplements
Related: What CBG isHow to read a COAQuestions to ask a supplierQuality methods
The vocabulary
- What is an API (active pharmaceutical ingredient)?The regulatory definition, the five things it actually requires, and why a purity figure is not one of them.
- API grade vs research grade: what actually changesThe molecule is the same. What differs is how much of its history is documented, and who answers for it.
- Where do I buy a cannabinoid reference standard?Who actually sells them, what the certificate must say, and why ISO 17034 and 17025 are not interchangeable.
- GMP ingredients: which GMP, and what each one coversFour unrelated regimes share the word. Which certificate means what, and the three questions that settle a claim.
- What does pharma grade mean?An empty phrase doing a real job badly — and the five-line specification that replaces it.
- How do you qualify a cannabinoid API supplier?Directory listings promise DMF and CEP against compounds that can hold neither. The questions that separate a manufacturer from a broker.
Other compounds
- CBGAThe precursor acid: no monograph, no drug programme, and what its stability question is.
- CBGVThe varin branch precursor: scarce, campaign-based, no monograph.
- CBDVThe one with real clinical history — and what missing an endpoint does and does not change.
- THCVWhere today's purity falls short of an API bar, stated plainly.
- CBNThe only one with any pharmacopoeial presence — and why an impurity limit is not a standard.
- Cannflavin AA prenylated flavone, not a cannabinoid: preclinical, milligram-scale, no bulk supply anywhere.