The urinary preparations are equally effective and less expensive, but are not as convenient to administer as they are available in vials versus injection pens.
[18] The package insert for Puregon states that structural analysis shows that the amino acid sequence of follitropin beta is identical to that of natural human follicle stimulating hormone (hFSH).
[10] Side effects of FSH preparations include:[21][medical citation needed] Corifollitropin alfa Merck received approval on February 15, 2010, from the European Commission for ELONVA (corifollitropin alfa) a long lasting single injection fusion protein lacking LH activity.
Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) can be recovered from the urine of pregnant women or be produced from recombinant DNA.
In veterinary medicine, equine chorionic gonadotropin (eCG) extracted from pregnant mare serum is used instead on a variety of mammals, sometimes eliciting an immune response in non-horse species.
[medical citation needed] In men: Used to treat select cases of Hypogonadotropic Hypogonadism in adult males.
[25] In off-label use, some urologists prescribe hCG in low doses in combination with testosterone replacement to preserve fertility.