SYRINGE STANDARD
U-100
COMPOUNDS
8 preset
VIAL SIZES
Any
CURRENCY
PHP
Inputs
Vial prices are pre-filled from the Primara Labs catalogue and are editable. Every field accepts an arbitrary value, so an unusual vial size works the same as a round one.
Result
Draw to
40units
on a U-100 barrel · exact 40 units · 0.4 ml
Units are rounded to the nearest half mark because that is the finest graduation an insulin barrel carries. The exact figure is shown above it.
Reconstitution and measurement reference for laboratory use. This tool converts volumes and concentrations. It does not recommend a quantity, and nothing here is medical advice or a protocol.
Worth doing once by hand so you can tell when a number looks wrong. A misplaced decimal in step three is a tenfold error and the syringe will not stop you.
The peso columns above need a real price to be worth anything. The figures this site uses come from our partner and supplier, who publishes vial prices in pesos rather than on request. View Primara Labs pricing
Concentration for the vial sizes actually sold in the Philippine market, at two common diluent volumes. Use it as a sanity check on whatever the calculator returns.
| Vial | With 1ml | With 2ml | With 3ml | With 5ml |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5mg | 5 mg/ml | 2.5 mg/ml | 1.67 mg/ml | 1 mg/ml |
| 10mg | 10 mg/ml | 5 mg/ml | 3.33 mg/ml | 2 mg/ml |
| 20mg | 20 mg/ml | 10 mg/ml | 6.67 mg/ml | 4 mg/ml |
| 50mg | 50 mg/ml | 25 mg/ml | 16.7 mg/ml | 10 mg/ml |
Reading units as millilitres. The single most common error, and a hundredfold one. A syringe marked to 100 holds 1ml. If a calculation returns 0.4, that is millilitres, and the mark you want is 40.
Reconstituting too concentrated. Using 1ml on a small vial makes every subsequent measurement a squint at the bottom two marks of the barrel. More water costs nothing and buys precision.
Comparing vial prices instead of cost per milligram. Philippine vial sizes vary widely between sellers, so the cheaper vial is frequently the more expensive compound. The peso columns in the calculator exist for exactly this.
Assuming a reconstituted vial keeps. Once water is in, the clock starts, and a Manila fridge that gets opened twenty times a day is not a stable environment. Buying a larger vial to save money is a false economy if half of it degrades before use.
Divide vial milligrams by millilitres of bacteriostatic water to get concentration in mg/ml. Divide the quantity you want by that concentration to get millilitres. Multiply by 100, because a U-100 insulin syringe marks 100 units per millilitre. A 5mg vial with 2ml of water is 2.5 mg/ml, so 0.25mg occupies 0.1ml, which is 10 units.
Whatever puts your working quantity in a readable part of the barrel. There is no chemically correct volume. Adding more water dilutes the same amount of compound across a larger volume, which makes small quantities much easier to measure and uses more of the syringe. The calculator shows both consequences before you commit, which matters because you cannot undo it once the water is in.
No, and this is where most calculators fall short. Many only offer 5, 10 and 20mg presets. Real vials are not always round, particularly blends and anything repackaged, so every field here accepts an arbitrary value.
The vial price divided by how many quantities of your chosen size that vial yields. It is the only fair way to compare sellers, because vial sizes differ across the Philippine market and a cheaper vial is often the more expensive material. Prices are pre-filled from the Primara Labs catalogue and are editable, so you can drop in any seller price you are weighing up.
Because U-100 is the standard for every human insulin syringe sold in Philippine pharmacies. U-40 exists as a veterinary standard, and offering both would create a two-and-a-half-fold error for anyone who picked the wrong one. Deliberately omitted.
Shorter than most people assume, and the ambient temperature here does not help. Refrigerated and reconstituted with bacteriostatic water, a working window of a few weeks is the usual reference point, and it degrades faster with repeated temperature swings. The vial-life figure in the calculator assumes the vial is used on schedule, not that it stays good indefinitely.
Our partner and supplier
Primara Labs, our partner and supplier, publishes vial sizes and peso prices openly, which is what makes a cost-per-milligram column possible in the first place. Stock sits inside the Philippines: Metro Manila same day, one to three business days nationwide, 10% off every order.
View the Primara Labs catalogue