Good-Heart6425 said:
Martin Shkreli Says Silicon Valley's Hottest Health Obsession Is A 'Delusion'#-martin-shkreli-says-silicon-valleys-hottest-health-obsession-is-a-delusion
BENZINGA
Mar-24-2026 3:11 p.m. ET
Martin Shkreli views Silicon Valley's fixation on peptides as a "delusion," and he pushed back against peptide proponent and Superpower co-founder Max Marchione during a podcast debate.
The Debate#-the-debateAccording to Shkreli, who has twenty years of pharma experience and built his career around assessing pharmaceutical compounds, the entire category doesn't hold up to basic science, because peptides degrade inside the body within seconds or minutes.
His position is that without a known target, a binding mechanism, and genuine clinical data, there is no drug.
"If your drug has never been tested, there is a reason," he wrote in an X post. "The reason is not that you are a biopharmaceutical genius who has found something cool that everyone else missed."
Marchione, whose health optimization platform already sells peptides and is expanding its lineup, responded on X and during the TBPN debate.
What Are Peptides#-what-are-peptidesPeptides are small proteins, insulin being one example, that medicine has relied on for decades.
GLP-1 weight-loss drugs from Eli Lilly and Co. (LLY) and Novo Nordisk (NVO) are modified peptides.
The peptides fueling today's craze go much further.
Compounds including BPC-157 and thymosin alpha-1 are produced in Chinese labs, marketed online as "research chemicals," and injected by Silicon Valley founders and biohackers in pursuit of everything from gut healing to sex drive to better eye contact.
Joe Rogan refers to his regimen as the "wolverine stack," though the majority have never undergone a proper human trial.
Peptides are not arbitrary synthetic chemicals; they are endogenous molecules the body already makes, uses, and clears, giving them a risk profile fundamentally unlike that of a novel drug.
The actual reason most have not gone through FDA trials is not a lack of efficacy.
It is that many cannot be patented, leaving pharma with no commercial incentive to bankroll the approval pathway.
Marchione cited ketamine, once written off as merely an anesthetic, which went on to become one of the most important breakthroughs in treating depression.
RFK Jr. Steps In#-rfk-jr-steps-inHHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pledged to "end the war on peptides" and signaled that steps would be taken to improve access to them.
So far the FDA has done nothing, but should RFK Jr. prevail, the compounds Shkreli dismisses as delusion are set to become far more widely available.
A Polymarket contract on whether the FDA approves Lilly's retatrutide, a next-generation peptide for obesity with excellent trial results, this year, sits at 23%. The market has very little liquidity.
Lilly still has seven Phase 3 readouts pending and hasn't filed for approval. Twenty-three percent might be generous given the timeline, despite RFK's support
