The entire global face paralysing industry is supported by an annual production of just a few milligrams.
A writeup of the production methods would be interesting. I wonder if it is produced in highly concentrated or even pure form and then diluted, or produced in diluted form. The former may be more efficient but I suspect it would be difficult to control tiny volumes of toxin that just happen to get lost in the mixing process. If you're diluting red paint into white paint it may not matter if a microgram of pure red hides in a crevice and get deposited into a gallon sometime later but it would sure matter if it was botulinum toxin.
"A baby-aspirin-size amount of powdered toxin is enough to make the global supply of Botox for a year. That little bit is derived from a larger primary source, which is locked down somewhere in the continental U.S.—no one who isn’t on a carefully guarded list of government and company officials knows exactly where. Occasionally (the company won’t say how frequently), some of the toxin (the company won’t say how much) is shipped in secrecy to the lab in Irvine for research. Even less frequently, a bit of the toxin is transported by private jet, with guards aboard, to the plant in Ireland."
A writeup of the production methods would be interesting. I wonder if it is produced in highly concentrated or even pure form and then diluted, or produced in diluted form. The former may be more efficient but I suspect it would be difficult to control tiny volumes of toxin that just happen to get lost in the mixing process. If you're diluting red paint into white paint it may not matter if a microgram of pure red hides in a crevice and get deposited into a gallon sometime later but it would sure matter if it was botulinum toxin.