The hype around peptides has seemingly died off pretty substantially over the last several weeks.
As most trends eventually do.
A few observations:
1. GLP-1s are still extremely popular, but they are not being advertised nearly as aggressively as they were prior to the Eli Lilly legal actions. If you zoom out and look at the broader GLP-1 market, even just the legitimate prescription market is massive. The desire to lose weight is not going away anytime soon. Obesity remains extremely common in the US, and regardless of how much the "fat acceptance" movement has tried to normalize it, most people do not want to be fat. In terms of peptides, RUO or otherwise, weight-loss compounds will probably remain the most popular because they provide the clearest perceived ROI and address something a massive percentage of the population wants.
2. Self-experimentation and health autonomy are still growing trends, a lot of people who started experimenting with peptides have already pivoted into various research chemicals and other experimental compounds. There is a growing group of people who are dissatisfied with the current medical system and want to optimize their health/performance with access to compounds that were abandoned for one reason or another, or they simply want to skip the line and gain access to compounds still in early-stage drug development. This is probably where I see the RUO market heading. Companies that continue investing in actual R&D and branch outside of the same 15 peptides every other company is selling are probably going to be the ones that gain traction.
3. Peptides originally grew through a convergence of several online communities: bodybuilding, biohacking, nootropics, longevity, fitness, finance bros, etc. But that audience has started to fragment. Old-school bodybuilders increasingly seem to have negative sentiment toward peptide users and biohackers, and vice versa. Something that initially felt relatively unified and anti-establishment has splintered into a bunch of smaller online tribes arguing with each other. In some ways, the peptide industry has started to cannibalize itself.
4. The affiliate-driven marketing and hype around certain compounds also failed to deliver the results the average person was expecting. Outside of GLP-1s, many peptides and research compounds produce relatively mild or modest effects, and for some people, seemingly none at all. A lot of people probably tried five, ten, or fifteen different compounds after seeing them hyped online and eventually came away thinking: "Meh." Other claimed benefits are incredibly difficult to measure objectively, which makes maintaining long-term hype even harder.
So where does this go from here?
- I think there will eventually be a second wave of peptide interest as more peptide-based therapies become integrated into mainstream medicine. As big as the peptide industry has felt online, the overwhelming majority of Americans are still far too risk-averse to inject something labeled "not for human consumption." That changes considerably when a compound is prescribed by a physician, dispensed through a pharmacy, marketed by a legitimate pharmaceutical company, or otherwise integrated into the traditional healthcare system. A lot of what was hyped over the past year inside biohacking, longevity, bodybuilding, and niche online communities may not truly break into the mainstream until the surrounding market matures and people feel more comfortable using these compounds.
- At the same time, I think the RUO market itself will evolve in the opposite direction: Instead of becoming more mainstream, it will probably become more experimental.
> More early-stage drug candidates.
> More abandoned compounds.
> More small molecules.
>More research chemicals.
>More obscure mechanisms.
And fewer companies surviving by selling the exact same catalog of BPC-157, TB-500, CJC-1295, ipamorelin, and GLP-1s.
GLP-1s will continue dominating the conversation among the general population because weight loss is an enormous market with an incredibly obvious value proposition.
But the interesting part of the RUO world may increasingly move elsewhere.
The first peptide wave was about discovering peptides and self-experimentation... The next wave, imo, will be about people realizing peptides are only the tip of the iceberg.
Left: Right:
Blasting Test TRT+
SARMs Peptides
Terrible recovery Prioritized recovery
Terrible diet Locked in diet
Inconsistent gym Locked in training
Alcohol No alcohol
Terrible bloodwork Clean bloodwork
Horrific BP Healthy BP
Excited to see Anthropic acknowledge the real problem with open is it competes with their corporate economic strategy. The “awareness” here is revealing.
When you build the biggest private market cap ever, you should expect competition. I’m sure the secondaries have been nice.
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