Peptides are already the hottest consumer category in 2026

& demand is outpacing regulations at egregious rates.

-Legitscript recently saw a 208% surge in advertising for peptides.

-More than 50 million TikTok videos are tagged with peptides.

-120 BPC-157 suppliers are listed on Alibaba alone...

So why isn't there more clinical data on them? Well, big pharma can't patent most peptides - they don’t see a clear IP path for these as yet.

Traditional clinical trials pull from EHR records, insurance claims, registries - data controlled by large orgs... & no large org sees peptides as a priority today.

So the data doesn't get collected. And consumers turn to dangerous sourcing - telegram, grey market sites, "looksmaxxing" influencers.

But what's interesting is that under the 21st Century Cures Act, the FDA actually accepts real-world evidence for drug approvals (this means anecdotal data as well).

But only 7 drugs have been approved this way so far - & most people don't even know this pathway exists..

We NEED to lean more into this & thankfully some people already are..

Clinics are building their own IRBs to run clinical trials.

Companies like Noho Labs are collecting real-world outcomes data.

I'm friends with founders exploring the lobbying route - finding alternative pathways to generate legitimate evidence.

But the system they're navigating wasn't built for this.

Spoke to a lobbyist last week who was on the Hims & Hers team & he said the regulatory framework was designed for a different era.

It didn't envision direct-to-consumer. It didn't anticipate telehealth. It didn't expect GLP-1s to explode.

"They've pieced together this Frankenstein set of regulations that has not kept up with the current state of play."

Obviously the peptide demand isn't going anywhere.

So it looks like the question is whether we're serious about building the infra to serve people safely - or watch consumers keep turning to grey markets.