Marketplace All-in-One
The 'biohacking' trend that has tech workers experimenting on themselves
19 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What are gray market peptides and why are they popular in Silicon Valley?
Gray market peptides are the new Silicon Valley party drug. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech. I'm Megan 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.
Chapter 2: How do gray market peptides differ from FDA-approved medications?
Independent journalist Jasmine Sun recently wrote about this for The New York Times.
Most folks these days actually know peptide as the P in GLP-1s, which are glucagon-like peptide agonists. So the gray market Chinese peptides people are buying and injecting have all sorts of purported benefits from weight loss to fitness to productivity.
But I think because of the azempic craze, folks started first thinking, can I get cheaper azempic straight from Chinese manufacturers rather than buying the more expensive kind? And then once they did that, they wondered, well, maybe there's a magic shot I can buy for skincare or for productivity or for all of these other benefits.
And so people are now experimenting with a much wider range of less tested, non-FDA approved peptides that promise to do things like increase your muscle growth, help you sleep better, all sorts of things.
Chapter 3: What are the potential benefits of using injectable peptides?
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?
It's a very interesting landscape. Yeah. So personal use is legal in the sense that an individual, an adult in the US can inject themselves with whatever they want. In this case, they're not like on the DEA list or anything like that.
Chapter 4: What legal issues surround the purchase of gray market peptides?
However, when people are buying these peptides from Chinese drug manufacturers, they're usually purchasing them as quote unquote research chemicals. And so these are meant to actually be sold to scientists who are doing science experiments with the peptides. They are often explicitly labeled on the vials, quote unquote, not for human use.
However, this is a gray market in the sense that people can purchase them saying, yeah, I'm doing research on myself and inject them anyway. And the peptide suppliers, they're happy to make a buck. They will just turn the other way.
And how much do these kinds of peptides cost? How sort of big is the market?
Yeah, so I do think the initial appeal of peptides is that they aren't super expensive. And you can get them for something like one-tenth, one-fifth of the cost than when you go on market because you're buying them in vials with just the ingredient. You have to mix them yourself and inject it in yourself. It's not coming in these pens automatically.
Chapter 5: How is the market for peptides evolving in the tech industry?
And the market for peptides, including the gray market, is actually growing a lot. So when I looked at the U.S. customs data, we saw the imports of hormone and peptide compounds from China specifically roughly doubled to $328 million in the first three quarters of 2025, up from $164 million in 2024. So it's more than doubled.
I would say the majority of this is those GLPs being used in either compounding pharmacies or gray market suppliers. But it also includes some other peptides like melanotan, which promises to make you tanner.
These are a little bit experimental. Have you heard of any bad experiences or negative side effects from people using these?
Yeah, I would definitely say that most doctors I spoke to are not advocates of using peptides because of the health risks that they pose. So some folks who use them did experience some mild negative side effects.
Chapter 6: What health risks are associated with using unregulated peptides?
This can be because of misdosing. So one woman I spoke with accidentally doubled her dose one day and her heart rate sped up and her hair started falling out and things like that. I hadn't heard of catastrophic side effects in most cases, but we did see a case where two women at a sort of health and longevity festival in Las Vegas
took a unknown blend of peptides and ended up being hospitalized due to breathing issues. So I do think that there are a lot of risks, mainly because one is from the supply chain itself. When you are buying from a gray market supplier or research factory, they're not held to the same standards as an FDA approved factory. And you don't really know what is in that vial when you get it.
And then the second thing is most of these peptides don't have any clinical trials run on them, right? And so maybe BPC-157 has been tested in rats, but we don't know how it works in humans. Sure, one person might have a great anecdote of it working, but we don't know what if you're younger? What if you have a preexisting health condition?
What if you stack it with these five other peptides as a lot of these people are doing? So there certainly are a lot of health risks that people are taking when they choose to experiment.
We'll be right back.
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Chapter 7: How does tech culture influence the use of biohacking practices?
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?
I think tech culture and San Francisco culture is in an interesting place where people are really embracing the cyberpunk and the biopunk. I think there's this notion among a lot of folks that, sure, maybe the rest of the world is caught up in these slow and bureaucratic institutions like the FDA.
But us here in San Francisco, because we are pioneers and we're hackers, we can do our own research and we can be on the frontier of medicine and health. And so I think there is this kind of anti-establishment attitude where folks believe that they and their own communities can experiment much faster and much better than the FDA can.
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.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah. I mean, I definitely think that this sort of optimization culture is another big part of it. It was really interesting how many of the tech founders I spoke to who are doing peptides, they would analogize it to the experiments that they run on their software products. So like one woman said, It's another thing I can tweak just like my SEO.
She's like, just try whatever, see if the number goes up, see if I feel better. A lot of folks also said when I asked them, are you worried about the risk? They would say, yes, it is risky, but I'm a risk tolerant person. I'm the kind of person who would start a company. I'm the kind of person who is willing to try anything to hunt for the big upside, even if there is some downside risk.
And then I do think that there is a way in which it's possible that tech culture is becoming a little bit more appearance and charisma conscious as well. One thing I was interested to know is that one of the women I interviewed who is on gray market, read a true tide, the GLP three, she said that she is starting a company. She was watching all of these launch videos from other founders.
And she noticed that other founders weren't overweight anymore. And now you always have to be on video because that's sort of what's taking over. You got to be doing long podcasts. You got to be presenting. And that made her a little bit more self-conscious and wanting to lose weight in order to compete within this extremely frothy, competitive world of startups.
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