Seeing this referenced everywhere the past few weeks. No idea what is about? Is it a new social media trend or something?

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[–] 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

Is it a new social media trend or something?

Yup. TLDR its basically a step below steroids. While I can't really speak to their safety etc, I do know that there are no legal OTC peptides in Canada. However that could simply be because Health Canada has very high standards and a lot of hoops to jump through, making our 40 million people market not worth it.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 weeks ago

    The reason peptides are largely a grey-market phenomenon is because they’re not easy to patent or otherwise monopolize through IP laws. Unlike your ordinary run-of-the mill medication, peptides are chemically simple, and often mimic or occur as endogenously-produced compounds in living animals.

    They’re promising research targets from a medical POV, but the pharma industry has been systematically ignoring them for decades due to difficulties around profiting from them, as demonstrated by the current rush of GLP-1 analogs. Any firm that invests in the clinical trials to prove safety + efficacy of a given compound won’t be able to stop competitors from ripping off their work.

    And to be fair, this incentive misalignment is a global issue rather than a US/Canada problem.

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