The Underground Peptide Market Is Getting Ready to Go Mainstream

Summary

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Big Take from Bloomberg:

"The Underground Peptide Market Is Getting Ready to Go Mainstream"

Episode Date: July 2, 2026
Hosts/Reporters: Amanda Mulligan, Nathan Hager

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the explosive rise of peptides—from their underground roots in fitness/bodybuilding into mainstream health, beauty, and alternative wellness. The hosts and reporters delve into why unapproved drugs are booming, how social media and compound pharmacies drive the trend, the looming regulatory sea-change, and what it all means for patients, big pharma, and the healthcare ecosystem.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Are Peptides and Why the Craze?

• Definition: Peptides are chains of amino acids that trigger or block various body processes.
  • Amanda Mulligan: "At the most basic level, peptides are chains of amino acids that bind to receptors in the body to turn processes on and off." (02:26)
• Uses: Range from major pharmaceuticals (insulin, GLP-1s for diabetes/weight loss) to unregulated wellness and cosmetic products.
• Appeal: Claimed benefits span fat loss, muscle gain, better skin, improved sleep, and more.
  • Nathan Hager mockingly summarizes the internet discourse: “They will make you theoretically tan, beautiful, snatched, pain free, well rested...” (02:41)

2. Mainstreaming from the Shadows

• Origins: Peptides became popular first among fitness/biohacking subcultures, then spread after the weight loss drug Ozempic (semaglutide) made headlines around 2021–2022.
  • Health Expert/Analyst: "They sort of became popular on like the fringes of the fitness and the bodybuilding community. And over time they've sort of seeped into more of the mainstream culture." (05:25)
• Influencers: Wellness podcasters, “biohackers” like Brian Johnson, and celebrities (including political figures) are fueling interest.
  • Health Expert/Analyst: “...we have people like Brian Johnson... Joe Rogan's talked about peptides... that's again, sort of thrust them into like mainstream culture...” (06:07)

3. How the Underground Market Thrives

• Scale: Estimated $1–3 billion market for black-market peptides (03:53).
• Availability: Super easy to buy online—often as "research chemicals" imported (usually from China), side-stepping bans by not marketing as drugs.
  • Nathan Hager: “You could buy some in a minute or two if you got out your credit card. Right now.” (03:48)
• Regulation Loophole: Unapproved peptides marketed as research-only exploit a legal gray zone.
  • Amanda Mulligan: “So black market peptide vendors will often market their products as research chemicals, not for human consumption.” (10:48)
• Risks: Potential unlabeled content, lack of human safety data, no dosing guidance, and real dangers (such as cancer risk with some peptides).

4. Patient Stories & Changing Risk Tolerance

• Case Study – Christy Turner, Indiana Therapist:
  • Used GLP-1 (Zepbound) to lose 200 lbs in two years.
  • Progressed to other peptides (GHKCU for skin, glutathione) using compounded products.
  • Trusted her functional medicine doctor and did her own research.
    • Christy Turner: “She always does a good job of educating me... I did a lot of research on my own and I really just didn't feel like the risks were significant for me...” (08:30)
  • Nathan Hager: "Her story... is sort of a case study in how people's risk tolerance expands." (08:53)

5. Why the Peptide Craze Persists

• Regulatory Vacuum: Most peptides lack FDA approval; current law considers unapproved drugs illegal but enforcement is inconsistent.
• Demand Drivers:
  • People frustrated with traditional medicine and high costs.
  • Popularization by online communities and influencers.
  • Increasing mistrust in establishment healthcare after Covid-19 and vaccine debates.
    • Health Expert/Analyst: "We're in this moment where we are seeing widespread distrust of traditional healthcare systems..." (21:06)

6. Looming Regulatory Change

• Policy Catalyst: New HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. publicly supports peptides and wants to divert users from the underground to regulated compounding pharmacies.
  • RFK Jr. (2023, paraphrased): “I’m a big fan of peptides. I’ve used them myself and used them with really good effect.” (04:09)
  • Health Expert/Analyst: “A lot of people in RFK circle are also peptide positive…” (15:09)
• Upcoming FDA Review:
  • End of July 2026: Advisory committee to recommend whether select peptides should be legalized for compounding pharmacy use (16:04).
  • Amanda Mulligan: "... committee is expected to recommend that seven peptides be added to the list of substances available for legal use in compounding pharmacies, with another five to be considered for inclusion by early 2027.” (16:04)
• Implications:
  • Could move black-market peptides “out of the shadows,” making products safer, traceable, and professionally compounded.
  • Nathan Hager: “If all of these things get put into legal compounding in the US that probably expands a lot of people's risk tolerance and willingness to try them...” (04:38)

7. Winners and Losers in a Legal Shift

• Winners:
  • Telehealth platforms & compounding pharmacies: poised to profit as legal suppliers (16:40)
  • Influencers, alternative medicine practitioners; “mainstream” marketing opportunities expand.
• Losers:
  • Traditional Big Pharma: most peptides lack patent protection, so less profit potential; could see patient populations bypassing name-brand drugs and insurers (18:49).
    • Nathan Hager: “I think that a potential loser here is big pharma, because a lot of these very, very popular compounds... don’t exist in patent protection anymore.” (18:49)

8. Remaining Questions and Concerns

• Patient Safety:
  • While harm reduction is likely if the supply is regulated, these drugs usually lack long-term safety data.
  • Potential for serious adverse effects, e.g., tumor growth with certain peptides.
    • Nathan Hager: “...if you have like a cancerous tumor... there’s a real danger of like suddenly you’ve supercharged... the ability of that tumor to grow. So you have like this whole spectrum of potential outcomes and because there’s no research, we don’t know how likely any of them are.” (20:02)
• Healthcare Disruption:
  • More people experimenting outside of the healthcare/doctor ecosystem, increasingly choosing self-administered solutions.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If you have a health concern or problem... there is probably a peptide for that.”
  – Health Expert/Analyst (01:49)
• “Some of the substances that we're talking about are like extremely well-researched... safe, effective... But there are a lot of other peptide based injectables that are largely unregulated.”
  – Nathan Hager (03:00, 03:17)
• “Already investors estimate that this peptide black market is worth 1 to 3 billion dollars. But it might not be a black market for long because the US Secretary of Health and Human Services is himself a peptide enthusiast.”
  – Amanda Mulligan (03:53)
• “It's not technically illegal to possess these chemicals and you can sell them as long as you're not marketing them as medicine... Not for human consumption.”
  – Amanda Mulligan (10:48)
• “I think that like the, the upside of this potentially is harm reduction... But then you've got the downside of putting this sort of imprimatur of safety and efficacy and legitimacy on drugs that we don't really know if they're safe or efficacious...”
  – Nathan Hager (19:44)

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Important Timestamps

• 01:49 – "There is probably a peptide for that" (introduction to what peptides are)
• 03:53 – Investor estimates of black market, regulatory shift preview
• 07:31 – User case study: Christy Turner, therapist/patient perspective
• 09:55 – 2023 FDA crackdown on compounding of unapproved peptides
• 10:48 – How black market vendors exploit the "research only" loophole
• 14:49 – RFK Jr.'s public peptide endorsement and influence
• 16:04 – Upcoming FDA advisory committee and legal path for select peptides
• 18:49 – Who wins and loses if peptides go mainstream
• 19:44 – Harm reduction/long-term safety debate
• 21:06 – Societal forces: frustrations with healthcare, rise of DIY approaches

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Tone & Language

The episode balances informed skepticism and accessibility, mixing straight business reporting with nods to social and cultural factors behind the peptide craze. Moments of irony and cultural references (like "alphabet soup" for peptide names, or "peptide-positive") give the conversation lightness while still emphasizing public health, regulatory, and economic questions.

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Summary Takeaway

The regulatory landscape for peptides is at a tipping point. Once only available as underground research chemicals, injectable peptides now attract mainstream demand, thanks to social media, frustrated patients, and new wellness trends. With U.S. health authorities (notably RFK Jr.) moving toward possible legalization for compounding pharmacies, the episode argues that a new era is coming—potentially safer for patients, full of business opportunities for telehealth and compounding, but disruptive for traditional pharma and full of ethical uncertainty due to unknown long-term risks.

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Transcript

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[Health Expert / Analyst]

Radio News Essentially, if you have a health concern or problem, whether that's a physical problem or a cosmetic or aesthetic one, there is probably a peptide for that.

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

That's Madison Muller, who covers the pharmaceutical industry for Bloomberg. Recently she's been hearing a lot about a specific kind of drug, peptides. I've been hearing a lot about them too. They seem to be everywhere.

[Nathan Hager (Bloomberg Reporter)]

Now to the injectable peptides craze sweeping social media. If you're in your 30s and you're not incorporating peptides into your skincare routine, why not?

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

At the most basic level, peptides are chains of amino acids that bind to receptors in the body to turn processes on and off. Peptides are used in lots of different drugs and they promise all kinds of transformative benefits.

[Nathan Hager (Bloomberg Reporter)]

They will make you theoretically tan, beautiful, snatched, pain free, well rested, that's Amanda

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

Mull, a senior reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek. She says some of the most popular peptide based drugs are ones you probably recognize, like GLP1s for weight loss and insulin.

[Nathan Hager (Bloomberg Reporter)]

Some of the substances that we're talking about are like extremely well researched, extremely widely used, safe, effective, and they come from pharmaceutical companies that have large, well inspected facilities for producing peptide drugs in large quantities.

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

But there are a lot of other peptide based injectables that are largely unregulated.

[Nathan Hager (Bloomberg Reporter)]

There's a lot of substances that have not been trialed extensively in humans or hardly at all in humans. For some of them, they do not come generally from large pharmaceutical companies in the US they are imported sort of as research materials. The sale of them is generally illegal for human use.

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

But Amanda says right now the underground peptide trade is booming.

[Nathan Hager (Bloomberg Reporter)]

You could buy some in a minute or two if you got out your credit card. Right now.

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

Already investors estimate that this peptide black market is worth 1 to 3 billion dollars. But it might not be a black market for long because the US Secretary of Health and Human Services is himself a peptide enthusiast.

[Nathan Hager (Bloomberg Reporter)]

I mean, I'm a big fan of peptides.

[IBM Representative]

I've used them myself and used them

[Nathan Hager (Bloomberg Reporter)]

with really good effect.

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

That's Robert F. Kennedy Jr. On Joe Rogan's podcast in the summer of 2023. Kennedy has been pushing the FDA to take a closer look at the drugs in part because he says he wants to divert demand away from what he's called a dangerous black market that could potentially pave the way for state regulated compounding pharmacies to make some peptides legally.

[Nathan Hager (Bloomberg Reporter)]

If all of these things get put into legal compounding in the US that probably expands a lot of people's risk tolerance and willingness to try them because they're coming from like a certified facility. They're, you know, traceable. They're, you know, it just brings it out of the shadows a little bit.

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

I'm Sarah Holder and this is the big take from Bloomberg News today on the show Inside the billion dollar peptide craze. How the drugs moved into the mainstream and what regulation would mean for telehealth companies, big pharma and the alternative wellness industry. What's the origin story for these drugs that use peptides?

[Health Expert / Analyst]

Well, peptides have actually been around for a long time. They sort of became popular on like the fringes of the fitness and the bodybuilding community. And over time they've sort of seeped into more of the mainstream culture.

[Nathan Hager (Bloomberg Reporter)]

If you are like looking for an inflection point, it is probably like 2021, 2022. When people beyond the sort of like type 2 diabetes patient community started to become aware that Ozempic and then Mounjaro were really great for weight loss, that started to become, you know, something that people wrote about in, like, culture magazines and on blogs and like on Reddit. So people started to look for options to receive these, these drugs.

[Health Expert / Analyst]

People were seeking out GLP from compound pharmacies or medical spas. And once they got comfortable sort of taking a medication that was not necessarily a branded, you know, pharmaceutical product, some of these med spas, some of these doctors started recommending other things. So let's try BPC157 or let's try GHKCU. All of these sort of sound like Alphabet soup of various letters and numbers and things. But people got comfortable with the idea one of injecting themselves with something because of the GLP1s and then also taking something that didn't come from a brand name pharmaceutical company. And we're also seeing right now, I mean, a lot of people who are big personalities, podcasters, biohackers, sort of talking about various, like, experimentation that they're doing with their own health. I mean, we have people like Brian Johnson that have a lot of followers have gotten a lot of attention. Joe Rogan's talked about peptides on his podcast. And so that's again, sort of thrust them into like the mainstream culture more and people just being more willing to sort of get health care from outside of the traditional healthcare system, outside of what doctors are prescribing them, and sort of taking it into their own hands sometimes in an extreme way.

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

Amanda and Madison talked to several people who've recently started using peptides. It's not all biohackers and looks maxers. It's people like Christy Turner, a therapist from Indiana.

[Christy Turner (Therapist)]

I feel like, I honestly think GLP1s have just been a gateway drug to peptides.

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

Christy started using Zepbound, a GLP1, in May of 2024. She credits the drug with helping her lose 200 pounds in two years.

[Christy Turner (Therapist)]

I've had a pretty charmed Disney experience on Zepbound, really.

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

Then about a year ago, Christy started using ghkcu, which helps with the skin sagging that often accompanies massive weight loss. And more recently, she's also started taking glutathione, which is supposed to boost her immune system. US Regulators don't permit GHKCU to be compounded in its injectable form. But Christie's doctor, a functional medicine practitioner and OSTEOPATH with her own independent practice sources the drugs from compounding pharmacies that are willing to make them. Compounding pharmacies are state regulated facilities that are licensed to make customized versions of drugs. Kristi sees her doctor remotely and trusts her advice.

[Christy Turner (Therapist)]

She always does a good job of educating me on what it is, not just saying you should take it. But she says, hey, if this is a concern, here's information on it. Let me know what you think. I looked at her stuff and then I did a lot of research on my own and I really just didn't feel like the risks were significant for me to take. I mean I just really didn't feel like I had risk really at it.

[Nathan Hager (Bloomberg Reporter)]

Her story to me is sort of a case study in how people's risk tolerance expands.

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

Bloomberg's Amanda Mulligan and how like somebody

[Nathan Hager (Bloomberg Reporter)]

who, who wants to do things, the very traditional, very by the book way can, can sort of have their mind opened to doing things that are sort of beyond that original risk tolerance because of the sort of networks of trust and relationships that they have to these drugs.

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

The reason there's this huge underground market for peptides is that aside from high profile drugs like GLP1s, most have not been approved for clinical use in the U.S. some of the peptides we're seeing today were first developed by pharma companies, but weren't projected to be safe or effective or profitable enough to be put through the FDA approval process. For a lot of them, that means they haven't gone through robust long term safety testing. And in the world of drugs, unlike say supplements or cosmetics, unapproved essentially means illegal.

[Nathan Hager (Bloomberg Reporter)]

In 2023, the Biden administration FDA decided to put many of these peptides on a list that explicitly banned compounding pharmacies from putting them in drugs for consumers, even with a valid prescription. But before that it was just sort of like they were illegal because they weren't explicitly made legal in some way. And so as they became more common online, the Biden administration said, we know that this is bec more popular. We will enforce against this. That got some of the compounding pharmacies that had been dabbling in this. It got some of them out of the business.

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

And this almost sounds like a naive question, but how are people getting them anyway then?

[Health Expert / Analyst]

It is so easy to order anything that you want online these days. So that's part of it is people are ordering what is considered research use only chemicals sort of online a lot of times from China or other overseas suppliers.

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

It's not technically illegal to possess these chemicals and you can sell them as long as you're not marketing them as medicine. So black market peptide vendors will often market their products as research chemicals, not for human consumption.

[Health Expert / Analyst]

It shouldn't be a loophole, but it is. It's people or some businesses think that by labeling something as research use only, it sort of shields them from liability of like actually selling something or importing something into the US that people are not supposed to be taking.

[Nathan Hager (Bloomberg Reporter)]

So what is being imported and sold to consumers in the case of these black market peptides is active pharmaceutical ingredients. You get the powdered version of of these active ingredients that is then imported in with peptide drugs. The powdered active ingredient. The only really difference between that and like a like a finished usable drug is reconstitution with like a type of sterile water that then makes it injectable. So you've got this powder coming in that is pretty EAS to teach people how to use once you can get it into their hands.

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

And buyers often don't know what's in these research use only chemicals. So their rise has also led to a growing demand for companies that test

[Nathan Hager (Bloomberg Reporter)]

these peptides as more and more people have heard about them. And the only way to get a lot of them is through this sort of trade with American resellers of Chinese peptide ingredients. More and more people have said like, wait, can you show me something that proves that like this powder is what you say it is and it's not fentanyl or something like that?

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

The underground peptide trade may soon move out of the shadows, what that means for these chains of amino acids and the future of our healthcare system. After the break.

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[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

When U.S. health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Was asked about peptides on the Joe Rogan show In June of 2023, he said he was a fan.

[Nathan Hager (Bloomberg Reporter)]

He's peptide positive.

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

I would say that's Amanda Mulligan.

[Nathan Hager (Bloomberg Reporter)]

He said that he has taken peptides, that he had a good experience with them, that he thinks they're very interesting.

[Health Expert / Analyst]

Yeah. And a lot of the people in RFK circle are also peptide positive. A lot of these figures within the MAHA movement, the Make America Healthy Again movement, have some sort of relationship to or have talked about taking peptides themselves. So there's a lot of chatter right now, sort of from these circles as well, that have become increasingly influential in this administration.

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

Madison Mueller says all these peptide positive vibes could soon lead to a seismic change for the industry.

[Health Expert / Analyst]

So there's basically going to be a advisory committee meeting at the end of July in which a group of independent experts will review the evidence, which there isn't much evidence to review, and basically make a non binding recommendation to the FDA and to HHS about whether these should be legalized, whether they should be sort of categorized differently to allow compounding pharmacies to make them in a legal

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

way in the U.S. this FDA committee is expected to recommend that seven peptides be added to the list of substances available for legal use in compounding pharmacies, with another five to be considered for inclusion by early 2027.

[Health Expert / Analyst]

Kind of at the end of the day, the HHS Secretary or head of the FDA can decide what they want to do, sort of regardless of what comes out of that meeting. But that meeting is supposed to be an important step toward legalizing these substances.

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

And who are the potential winners here if peptides do gain the regulatory approval that the administration is pushing for?

[Nathan Hager (Bloomberg Reporter)]

Well, I think that there are a lot of parts of the healthcare industry that have already started to like, line up behind what they see as an eventuality. Telehealth platforms, which have benefited enormously from the GLP1 boom. Compounding pharmacies. Telehealth platforms and compounding pharmacies often partner to, you know, sort of like serve large scale patient populations for particular drugs. Entrepreneurs who are starting up, you know, ways of sourcing these drugs like fitness influencers. The funny thing about the sort of research chemicals is that in order to like, not violate federal law, when you're selling research materials, you're not supposed to acknowledge at all that they might have any kind of effects in the human body. You're not supposed to provide dosage advice. And part of that is you're not supposed to partner with influencers who talk about how wonderful they are for your skin or your sleep or your body composition or whatever. But you know, compounding pharmacies and telehealth platforms do have like much broader capacity to partner with advertisers, to partner with platforms, to partner with influencers. So the further this gets brought into regulatory compliance, the more opportunities there are for a lot of fronts.

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

But even if they do gain more widespread acceptance, Peptides won't necessarily be heading for your GP's office.

[Health Expert / Analyst]

They still are sort of on the fringes of the regular traditional drug approval system because they won't be FDA approved products. Even if the FDA says that compounding pharmacies can make them. It's different from the, you know, pharmaceutical grade products that have been tested extensively in hundreds or thousands of patients over many, many years in large, you know, blinded trials. So how will companies handle these if they're wanting to be above board and sort of comply with like the FDA standards for drug drugs is sort of

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

a lingering question from a business perspective. Who are the potential losers here? Who doesn't stand to gain if these kinds of regulatory shifts happen?

[Nathan Hager (Bloomberg Reporter)]

I think that like a potential loser here is big pharma because a lot of these very, very popular compounds, like they don't exist in patent protection anymore. There's not really any direct way that any particular pharma company can profit off of these any more than like a, you know, an enterprising compounding pharmacy or telehealth platform. So not only that, but you have like a patient population who is more and more comfortable sort of finding someone who will sell them something directly, whether that is finding a doctor online who will send them to a compounding pharmacy, or whether that is finding active pharmaceutical ingredient powder themselves and figuring it out from there based on what people on Reddit say.

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

I know the answer to this is probably, it depends. But I am wondering what having more peptides available legally through compounding pharmacies means for patients or potential users.

[Nathan Hager (Bloomberg Reporter)]

I think that like the, the upside of this potentially is harm reduction. Like you've got a patient population of millions of people who are on these medications currently or who are very interested in getting on them. And if a lot of them are willing to take peptides from like wherever online, then is it ultimately safer and more beneficial to those patients to give them sort of a safe supply situation? But then you've got like sort of the downside of putting this sort of imprimatur of safety and efficacy and legitimacy on drugs that like, we don't really know if they're safe or efficacious or good for you in the long term. BPC157 is one of the very, very popular peptides and people rave about it. People say that, you know, they healed 10, they healed old injuries. But there's also based on the mechanism of like how this drug works, it potentially, like if you have like a cancerous tumor in your body that you don't know about yet, or that isn't dangerous yet, hasn't grown yet, there's a real danger of like suddenly you've supercharged, not only your tendon regeneration but also the ability of that tumor to grow. So you have like this whole spectrum of potential outcomes and because there's no research, we don't know how likely any of them are.

[Health Expert / Analyst]

There's a couple of different things happening right now. I mean we're in this moment where we are seeing widespread distrust of traditional healthcare systems. You know, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And HHS, they've been very skeptical of things like vaccines and sort of upending long standing vaccine recommendations. Especially after Covid, people became pretty skeptical of government recommendations for healthcare, public health, just the whole ecosystem in general. Also a lot of frustration with health insurers and the cost of medications, the cost of treatment. People also want to take control of their health and they're interested in more preventative solutions. And so people are looking outside of the traditional sort of health care paradigm. That medications and treatment were often recommended in and sort of it existed within the doctor's office. And now people are seeking out things really outside of the doctor's office, mostly if they're going even to the doctor at all.

[Amanda Mulligan (Bloomberg Reporter)]

This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder. To get more from the Big Take and unlimited access to all of bloomberg.com, subscribe [e-mail] podcastoffer if you like this episode, make sure to subscribe and review the Big Take wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps people find the show. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.

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