A panel of advisers to the Food and Drug Administration, several of them sellers of experimental peptides, dismissed the concerns of the agency’s scientists on Thursday, voting in favor of allowing broad production of poorly understood peptide treatments.
By the end of the first day of a two-day meeting, votes on four different peptide products ended in favor of allowing specialized pharmacies to produce and sell the treatments. Votes on three more peptides are scheduled for Friday.
The votes were nonbinding, but they were a rebuke to F.D.A. scientists, who said the risks and benefits of the peptide drugs under consideration had not been sufficiently studied.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees the F.D.A., has long supported lifting restrictions on peptides. In the weeks before Thursday’s hearing, his office nominated eight new members to the committee of academics and doctors that would review the issue, six of whom have sold peptide products, some banned, with health claims backed by minimal science.
“I think we have seen an extraordinary abuse of the advisory committee process to secure ends that have no basis in science,” said Dr. Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
The specific issue before the committee was whether the F.D.A. should allow specialized pharmacies to produce seven peptide products that the agency banned three years ago over safety concerns. The products, mostly injections, some of which Mr. Kennedy has used and trumpeted, are currently sold as “research grade” products not meant for widespread use. Despite the restriction, they are marketed online for a wide range of claimed benefits, from tendon repair to brain health.
In the first vote on Thursday, the six peptide sellers joined with a compounding pharmacist and a pharmacy business executive to vote 8 to 6 in favor of adding a peptide known as BPC-157 to a list of products that bespoke pharmacies can dispense.
The eight new committee members voted in favor of wider access to the peptide, which was described in open testimony as having a variety of uses, from helping cardiac patients to those with endometriosis.
Those in the peptide trade, who identified themselves simply as a researcher, physician or pharmacist, said they were swayed by reports from members of the public who testified moments earlier.
“Even with the limited data that we have, it wasn’t a significant signal in terms of risk,” said Asare Christian, the founder of a Philadelphia-area clinic that sells BPC-157 “for healing.”
He added: “We are always taking risk with patients, with all the interventions we do as physicians.”
Before the vote, the Department of Health and Human Services defended the selections. “All committee members underwent the same ethics review and vetting process required of all F.D.A. advisory committee members,” the department said in a statement. “Candidates that could not meet existing ethics requirements were removed from consideration.”
Dr. Brian P. Lee, a University of Southern California liver transplant doctor, said he voted ‘no’ based on the fact that a sham medication, or placebo, can lead 30 percent of patients to believe their condition has improved. He said the data for the peptide indicated an even smaller effect than a standard placebo, and a potential for risk.
“I think this endorsement can be potentially harmful, and I cannot, in good conscience, vote yes,” he said.
The committee also voted in favor of broadening access to the peptide KPV in the form of a cream or gel. The peptide is thought to signal the body to reduce inflammation, but has not been studied thoroughly. It also ratified expanded use of MOTS-c, a peptide created from mitochondria DNA that is believed to improve energy and growth. The compound has not been described in published studies that examine its use in humans.The committee voted in favor of injectable TB-500, a peptide that, according to the F.D.A., was initially developed as a veterinary drug to boost performance in horse or greyhound racing.
Discussing that injectable drug, Dr. Elizabeth Rebello, a medicine professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, asked a question underscoring how exceptional the process was: “Has the F.D.A. approved a medication delivered in this form that’s not been studied in humans previously?”
And F.D.A. official responded: “No.”
Dr. Lurie testified that it was inappropriate for the committee to include the vendors who had created demand for peptides to begin with.
“Now we are being asked to succumb to that demand because it is too late to put the genie that they have helped create back in the bottle,” he said.
Other testimony on Thursday suggested that peptide use could surge.
Dr. Anant Vinjamoori, the chief medical officer at Hims, a major online medication provider, told the committee that the company would offer peptides and “benefit commercially” from them if the F.D.A. added them to the compounding list.
“I’m not going to tell you that the evidence for BPC-157 is strong,” he said. “It isn’t, and I won’t overclaim it.”
He added: “What I’d ask is that you not read thin as nonexistent.”
He speculated that the benefits could exist on a cellular level and offer an option for patients who have failed to improve from traditional therapies.
Peptides are chains of amino acids that prompt cells to perform actions like decreasing inflammation or increasing collagen production. Some peptides that have been fully vetted by the F.D.A. include drugs like insulin or GLP-1s.
But unproven peptides with names like BPC-157 and MOTS-c have gained a foothold on social media, where users show off their “stacks,” or combinations of peptides, and extol their virtues for weight loss, muscle building and glowing skin. They are often referred to as “peppers” to avoid content moderation.
Some are backed by studies in rodents or in a petri dish suggesting that they could help with wound healing, osteoporosis or inflammation. But a similarly limited set of studies suggests they could cause harm, such as severe allergic reactions or the potential to enhance tumor growth.
There is little to no data on how these peptides work in humans.
“We’re missing safety, we’re missing efficacy — we’re missing the critical evidence,” said Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist and the founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute.
“I don’t have a bias that the peptides are bad, necessarily,” he added. “I just want to see the evidence, and we don’t have any.”
F.D.A. records show that the six committee members who sell peptides include self-described longevity physicians who market peptides for overall health, and even for some specific diseases. Some of their clinics also offer other unproven treatments such as ozone therapy and energy healing.
One member, Dr. Gabriel Alizaidy, is the scientific director at Maximus, a telehealth company that sells growth hormone peptides for about $200 per month. The company received a warning letter from the F.D.A. over its claims about compounded weight-loss medications.
Another panelist is Bobby Harshbarger, a Tennessee state senator and pharmacist. His mother, Representative Diana Harshbarger, Republican of Tennessee, who is also a pharmacist, wrote to Mr. Kennedy in November urging him to allow wider use of some of the peptides under consideration Thursday and Friday.
On a podcast last year with Gary Brecka, a biohacker who sells peptides on his website, Mr. Kennedy said the F.D.A. should “just do the science” on items like peptides and unproven stem cell treatments, “but not tell people, and not tell physicians, what they can and cannot prescribe.”
“If you want to take an experimental drug, you can do that,” Mr. Kennedy said. “You ought to be able to do that.”
More recently, Mr. Kennedy has said that the 2023 ban on the peptides has forced people to use gray-market peptides that present safety concerns. Adding them to the list of compounds that can be made in regulated pharmacies would increase safety, he has argued.
A number of people offered testimony repeating that argument and suggesting that the F.D.A. make the peptides available with conditions such as purity testing or requirements for reports of harm.
But F.D.A. officials said they did not have power over state pharmacy boards — which are the dominant overseer of the specialized pharmacies that would produce the peptide products — to make those things happen.
“I think one thing maybe the committee doesn’t quite understand, because I’ve heard so many calls for ‘I want guardrails,’” said Russell Wesdyk, an official in the F.D.A.’s office of pharmaceutical quality. “I don’t have those regulatory authorities.”
July 23, 2026
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An earlier version of this article incorrectly described the scope of Dr. Anant Vinjamoori’s role. He is the chief medical officer at Hims, not at both Hims and Hers.