Meghan McCarty Carino

In an industry known for pushing the bounds of human innovation, tech elites are now trying to push the bounds of their own bodies.

The hot new biohacking trend is injectable peptides, sort of like the ones found in GLP-1 medications like Ozempic, but these are not approved by the FDA.

These gray market peptides, largely from Chinese manufacturers, are being used by tech workers not just to lose weight, but to optimize their health and performance in all manner of ways.

Independent journalist Jasmine Sun recently wrote about this for The New York Times.

So we've been calling these gray market peptides because, as you note, they have not been approved by the FDA.

Where do they kind of fall in the regulatory landscape?

And how much do these kinds of peptides cost?

How sort of big is the market?

These are a little bit experimental.

Have you heard of any bad experiences or negative side effects from people using these?

We'll be right back.

You're listening to Marketplace Tech.

I'm Megan McCarty Carino.

We're back with Jasmine Sun, independent tech journalist who recently wrote about the use of peptides among techies in Silicon Valley.

What does the popularity of these gray market peptides say to you about kind of where tech culture is right now?

There also seems to be this sort of change in the paradigm of like the tech bro in the AI age where, you know, we used to kind of think of like skinny guys and hoodies.

And now it's like you must optimize your body, you know, like in all these ways because the tech culture is so hardcore now.

You know, it's all about being extremely hardcore.

That was independent tech journalist Jasmine Sun.

We'll have a link to her full piece in The New York Times on our website, MarketplaceTech.org.