The Billion-Dollar Peptides Gold Rush

0:00What if data didn't sit still? What if intelligence moved with us? Not buried in reports, but activated in real time, where lives are being shaped, where decisions are being made. It all starts with a question. Where is the potential? Cotality turns data into clarity, intelligence into insight, insight into action. Because when intelligence moves, we all move forward. Cotality. Intelligence beyond bounds. Never bet against American grit or American energy. Through innovation, Venture Global is not only building some of the largest energy facilities in the world right here in the United States, but delivering American energy at a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the time.

0:48So while others are busy talking, we're busy building. That's Venture Global. That's unstoppable energy.

1:00Small businesses are the pulse of every community. They bring people together, create opportunities, and drive growth. Chase for Business helps business owners like you with personalized guidance and convenient digital tools all in one place. With that guidance and your determination, you can take your business farther and help build a brighter future for your community. Learn more at chase.com slash business. Chase for Business. Make more of what's yours. The Chase mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., member FDIC. Copyright 2026, JPMorgan Chase and Company.

1:39Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio. This is about the million dollar peptides gold rush. And as I was reading it, I thought about a friend of mine who recently shared that he is the father of a teenage boy or two. He found some peptides in the refrigerator in the basement. Well, safe storage at least. Safe storage, but not necessarily safe injection or safe part of the world or place that these came from. And that's really at the heart of the story. First of all, if people aren't familiar with peptides, Madison, start us out.

2:28What are they? Ooh, that's a good question. One of the things is that most people actually don't know what they are, don't know how to explain them, even if they think that they do. And a lot of people are injecting these things, don't really know what they are. But peptides are essentially, I mean, if you think about it, insulin's a peptide, GLP-1's are a peptide. There are a lot of legal drugs out there that are peptides, common drugs. But when we're talking about peptides, so putting it in this sort of context, we're talking about black market peptides, the ones that are not approved drugs that don't really have the rigorous.

3:04These were the ones in the fridge of the teenage boy. Yes. OK, this doesn't sound good. What exactly are black market peptides? Amanda? Well, they start off as little glass vials of powder that are imported from overseas, usually from Chinese manufacturers, which it should be noted also produce a lot of the active pharmaceutical ingredients and perfectly legal, perfectly safe drugs. They're imported from overseas, little glass vials of powder. They're reconstituted with a special type of sterile liquid so that they can then be drawn up into a syringe and injected. um and so once they're reconstituted they have to be kept cold uh in order to be kept safe uh so that's why they're in the fridge why do people want them a whole host of reasons for everything for everything basically to sleep to tan to one thing that may inform the question is carol's not on instagram maybe she doesn't see the same things i do tell us about like what is going on?

4:06Well, people are looking for a magic pill. Like, as always, as the beginning of humanity, people have been looking for substances that can solve various problems. And people are hopeful because GLP-1 drugs are so effective at helping people lose weight. And work. They work. They work. They're safe. They're effective. They've been used in large, you know, know patient populations so once those got popular people started looking for other peptides to do other things in their bodies well madison you cover the regulate mostly the regulated pharmaceutical industry as a health care reporter uh do the black market peptides work does the stuff that is sold as part of um i don't know a filler treatment at a med spa in brooklyn or the stuff that a celebrity talks about as a secret seems to know a lot about this it's all in the story I know, I know.

5:00I'm just kidding. Do they work? Is there the evidence to back it up? That is the key question. Because the thing is, if you ask someone, and we ask many people in the course of reporting this story, several of whom are in the story, they do work. They're life-changing. But the evidence and the safety data and the effectiveness data is not there to back it up. So it's hard to know and it's hard to tease out. I mean, one of the people that we talk to in the story is on terzepatide, which is the active ingredient in Lily's drugs. They're also on multiple other things. And so it's hard to know whether the effects that they're experiencing, the anti-inflammatory effects, the weight loss, all of the things are because of Lily's drug, which we know does work, or the other things that they're on.

5:48And sometimes when people start taking these peptides, they might also start working out more or start eating healthier or doing other things. and it's just a bit hard to know what's actually happening. So the FDA is all over this, right? Well, all over it is generous. There was a little sarcasm there. Yeah, I mean, they're all over it in certain ways. Well, tell us, where are they on this? Because it's obviously people are interested, people are consuming them, right? And so where are they? Well, I think perhaps we haven't said this yet, but these drugs are illegal to sell, illegal to prescribe.

6:23They are black market substances. They are not approved for legal sale in the United States. And the ones that are approved for legal sale, if you're getting them in vials of powder, you're getting an illegal version of them that's being sold outside of patent. It won't be the first time that somebody consumes an illegal substance, right? Yeah. Illegal drugs have a long and storied history in this country. Okay. But what's worrisome, though, right? And where is the government on this? Right. So RFK Jr. has said he's a peptide fan, first and foremost, and has said that because there is this overwhelming.

6:55Yeah. Hold on. But that's such a hold on. I just want to stop you there because that's contradictory in some way, because a lot of his supporters, Madison, you've been on our program talking about this. A lot of the Make America Healthy Again people are sort of anti-GLP1, which you helpfully shared with us at the beginning, is a peptide. So is there some sort of contradiction there? They're being sort of caught in a bit of a corner that they've backed themselves into, I would say. Because there is, you know, the way I would think about it is that, like, it's not an incoherent position toward science or scientific proof or towards these drugs.

7:30But it's a coherent position in regards to, like, an attitude toward authority. So getting these things outside of normal medical guidelines, outside of normal chains of expertise, outside of a doctor's office in most cases, is like really an effective pitch for the Maha crowd for a lot of different things because it enables a person to feel like they are taking control of their health and, you know, not listening to what the government or big pharma says. So the existence of these peptide supply chains, like outside of regulatory control, is like very enticing to the whole like Maha mindset, I would say.

8:08So RFK Jr. has said that he is a fan of peptides and he has instructed the FDA's regulatory committee on compounded pharmaceuticals to look into allowing some of these drugs to be made by compounding pharmacies, which wouldn't approve them for like regular pharmacy sale in like your local CVS, but it would make them available through like sterile facilities in the U.S. Well, isn't that going to tick off Peter Magic? Or it will do more business. Or what? Yeah. Tell us about him, because that's kind of the character that kicks off your story. Do you want to go into it? Sure. He drives a fast car.

8:47Yes. That's all you need to know. Peter Magic is a chemist with a lab outside of Prague. Is Magic his real name? Yes, as far as we can tell. Keep going. He owns a testing lab outside of Prague that has sort of become like a central node in the trade of black market peptides across the world. Because he started his business to test black market anabolic steroids. And peptides first gained like sort of a foothold through some of the same users, like fitness, hobbyists, biohackers, people who are interested in perfecting their own form. so he realized there was an opportunity to uh purity and sterility test these substances because like users of anabolic steroids people want them and they want them outside of legal means but they still don't want to like die because they injected something yeah so so madison does that mean they're safe still not necessarily i mean the thing that you know he can he can test these substances he can say that they are what they purport to be but a lot of these people like The practices of injecting yourself with the medication, some people aren't changing the syringe or they're not cleaning properly.

9:58There can still be things in these drugs that are not necessarily safe. The practice of how people are actually taking and consuming these medicines, there's just no oversight. Any number of things can happen, and that's sort of the problem. I mean, there can be medication interactions. You can be the one of the things is with some of these peptides, you need to take blood tests. You need to cycle on and off of them. So you're not essentially like poisoning yourself. And not everyone knows that. So it's like all of these things that in, you know, with normal drugs and in a normal setting would have some type of doctor involved or some type of oversight or just not happening.

10:37What does the medical community say? What do doctors say? Well, we there are some doctors who are also fans of them. And like we talked to some of them in this story and those doctors are more comfortable, I would say, with the risks or aware of the risks. But they think that some of the benefits might outweigh the risks. And so it's definitely challenging. Amanda, do we get to a point where in a couple of years this is just going to look so quaint because these have made their way through a formal approval process and will be able to buy legitimate peptides at CVS? Probably not. The FDA's process for approving drugs like this for regular commercial sale is pretty specific in the kinds of proof that it requires.

11:26And in order to this is the same reason why it's been until last week, it was years and years since we had gotten a new sunscreen filter approved, even though there's lots of effective ones being used in Europe and Asia for decades. the FDA requires like somebody to invest in a lot of very expensive lengthy clinical trials in order to create the sort of safety and efficacy data that it requires in order for these drugs to be sold commercially. So because these drugs exist outside of like the normal patent process that that would normally allow a single company to profit off of them exclusively for a period of time after their approval nobody no single company is really incentivized to go through the effort of getting these drugs tested and approved in the way that they normally would be, because once they're approved, then all of their competitors can make them and sell them as well.

12:17So the FDA, at least under RFK, seems intent on making an end run around that type of legalization, or at least that's the issue that they're going to take up in a few weeks. We only have about 50 seconds left here. I'm just like in reporting this out, because there are people, as you say, it's all over social and people are looking at this and thinking, should I take this? What's a quick like thought to them, Madison, or what's your what what did you learn and kind of doing this? I mean, I think that it will be really important for people to tune into this FDA meeting that's happening in July where they will literally be reviewing the evidence and the data around these things.

12:58There are independent experts on this committee that will be talking about that. Yeah. Yeah. And most of the people that we talk to say there really isn't any evidence or human data on this. So I think like hopefully that will make people aware of the situation more. Fifteen seconds for you, Amanda. Well, I think many of their proponents agree that there's not any data, but they think that they should be able to give it a shot if they want to. Great reporting. Great story. Highly recommend everybody check it out. Of course, our Madison Muller and Amanda Mull. Thank you guys so much for bringing it to us.

13:30When you're running a business, the best days are the ones where priorities stay on track. For midsize and large companies, risk can affect multiple parts of the organization at once, from property and liability to cyber and regulatory challenges. At that level, managing risk becomes an ongoing discipline. At the Hartford, the focus is on helping businesses manage risk before it turns into something more disruptive. And when losses do happen, that work is paired with insurance coverage shaped by years of underwriting, risk engineering, and claims experience. Learn more at thehartford.com slash risk mitigation.

14:05Policies provided by Hartford Fire Insurance Company and its property and casualty affiliates, Hartford, Connecticut. So as a pizza genius, I know pizza shop orders come from, well, everywhere. With Genius by Global Payments, online orders actually sink straight into your kitchen. It's as simple as pie. And with digital menu boards, your specials, your prices, your brand, always front and center. It's one system, ready for game night crowds. Any night of the week, really. Big league reliability for any business. That's genius. These days, it seems like AI agents are just about everywhere you turn, every field and every function.

14:46But without identity, you can't trust they'll serve your business instead of jeopardizing it. Fortunately, Okta helps you get identity right by securing your AI agent's identities, giving you a single layer of control, a single standard of trust. So whether an AI agent supports a single user or your entire enterprise, with Okta, you'll turn risk into opportunity. Secure every agent. Secure any agent. Okta secures AI.