Daybreak - A cancelled peptide party, and the questions it raised that Indian sellers still can't answer

Episode Date: September 20, 2026

India was about to have its first-ever peptide party with fifty guests, a mystery venue marketed only as "not a hospital," and a menu of collagen, glutathione, and copper peptides. Then the Karnataka Food Safety and Drug Administration started asking questions, and the party was cancelled overnight.On this episode, The Ken's Sudeshna Ray joins host Rachel Varghese to unpack the peptide craze that's crossed over from Silicon Valley biohacking circles into Indian gyms, Instagram DMs, and D2C wellness brands, and the murky, largely unregulated supply chain, that runs through China, that gets these substances into the country in the first place.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In the 1989 Stephen Spielberg classic, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Jones is faced with a tough choice near the end. He has just found a cave that holds the mythical holy grail. The cup that Jesus supposedly drank out of during his last supper set to cure any sickness, heal any wound and grant eternal life to whoever drinks from it. Except there are dozens of cups in the cave. It's a test. Only one cup is the real grail, and as the guardian of the cup warns, one must choose. Choose wisely and you get immortal life. Choose poorly and, well, you die.

Now, humanity has been trying to solve aging and death for a long time now. The grail itself has been the subject of many fictional and real-life treasure hunts for centuries. From King Arthur's Knights to fun fact, even the real-life Nazis that the indie movies are in. inspired by. And more recently, we've also had billionaires like Brian Johnson and Dipinder Goel trying to crack longevity through science. But what if I told you that right now in 2026, you could make a similar choice. That there is a compound that sounds almost magical. It can slow skin aging, heal you faster and even improve your sex life. And what if I told you that we've always technically had it.

There is something called sex maxing peptide, which is like a peptide you take to boost your libido. There are peptides doing rounds for increasing your height. And if you've probably thought of it, there may be a peptide around it. You just heard my colleague Sudeeshna Ray, a reporter at the Ken. And she almost attended the first ever peptide party in Bangalore

on August 29th. Almost attended because the party never happened. Never happened because it drew the attention of the Karnataka food safety and drug administration. Now, peptides have been a craze in Silicon Valley for a while now. Part of a larger trend called biohacking where tech experts believe that they can literally hack their way to a body that ages slower, recovers faster and stays stronger for longer. The thing is, peptides by themselves aren't to be able to. New. Insulin is 1 and the P in GLP1, the class of drugs that Ozympic is a part of, stands for peptide.

Our body produces peptides which are short chains of amino acids that trigger your body into doing something very specific. But the peptides these parties pass around are different. They exist in a gray market that's untested and unregulated. And unlike Jones, who was a brilliant archaeologist and had a way to identify the real cup, these peptides are sold in a very market. way where regular consumers can't really verify what the contents of the while are. So today, I had Sadiyaanat join me in the studio to explore what the craze is about, how peptides are actually acquired and circulated here, and why exactly the party got cancelled. Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host, Rich Huberguise,

and every day of the week, my co-hosts in Kashramana, will bring you one news story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Monday, the 21st of September. Let's start with the party itself. After the way peptides had blown up in the San Francisco Silicon Valley, it made sense that the first peptide party in India was set to happen in the Silicon Valley of India. And Sudezhena's interest was immediately peak when she first heard about it. So actually this really started very casually. Tanmay, who is of course another reporter at the Ken.

He sent me an ex post which immediately rang a bell because it was a peptide party. here in Bangalore. I've heard about a bunch of others in different countries. It pitched something comparable to a coffee or wine tasting of sorts, but for peptides, where the event would have tastings, music, food, games, and most importantly, conversations about what people felt about peptides in this country. So I got in touch with the organizers.

This was an invite-only event happening in not, a hospital somewhere apparently in Kormangla. So a limited guest list and a mysterious menu that was just marked as not a hospital. And the company organizing the event was called Peptide OS. A Bangalore-based wellness startup that makes its own peptides run by a company called Upsurge Labs, which is a two-year-old research lab that focuses on AI, robotics and biotech. Now, Sudejana was curious to see who is attending an event like this. and that's why she wanted to go,

because the guest list was likely to include influencers, wellness enthusiasts, and even medical professionals, all of them with something to say about where India stands on peptides today. But what was the peptide OS party actually going to serve? So one ingredient you may have heard of its glutathione, which is a very popular in the Ivy Drips market. Then they were going to have collagen, spirulina, and something called a copper peptide.

and it was only going to be oral peptides and no injectables is what they have claimed later on. Now, glutathione is a peptide that repairs cells and aids detoxification. Collagen, I'm sure most of us, recognize as the protein that gives skin its elasticity. Spirulina is an algae, which is also rich in antioxidants and copper peptides help with skin repair and hair growth. You see, the reason why peptide OS put out a post with the menu was strategic. After the FDA got involved, they had to insist that injectables were never part of the plan. Just the topical serums and skin care staples, most of us already recognize that also draws less regulatory attention. But the thing is, peptide OS does dabble in injectables.

Sudeshna told me that its previous ex post from its now deleted. account actually covered things like how to read an insulin syringe while dosing peptides and even had information on a four peptide injectable blend. The brand's D2C website also sold injectables. And that may be the reason what caught the regulator's attention in the first place. The Kanataka Food Safety and Drug Administration took notice and they served a notice where they asked a lot of questions to the organizers. What brands are they going to be serving?

what substances are they going to be serving? Who was the manufacturer? Who was the supplier? Where do they get these from? And even some bordering on the evidence of what studies are there to prove these work? What else is going to happen in the party? They asked a bunch of questions,

the answer to which the organisers were not able to give in time for the party. So it got cancelled overnight. So the Karnataka FPA filed a notice to peptide OS under Section 22 of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, and the event was cancelled. But still, a major question remained. If the event was just for 50 people and the only thing being passed around was collagen and copper peptides, was it really important enough to be shut down overnight? You see, the regulated side of India's peptide market and that includes insulin, ozempic, etc.,

is worth about a billion dollars. When it comes to the unregulated market though, no one really even knows what the size is, because these drugs are not registered. And the party had just made that side more visible for the first time in India, even though it has been around for a while. More on this in the next segment. So what is actually in circulation in the unregulated market? Now, there are a few specific ones that stand out called PPC 157 and TB5.7, and TB5.

And surprisingly enough, they both started as veterinary treatments. They were used to treat tendon injuries in race horses and were eventually adopted by bodybuilders in India. By the way, neither of these peptides have sufficient human data for the US FDA to have approved them as of yet. But still, a pony-based fitness enthusiast told Sudezschean that this has been used in Indian gyms and among bodybuilders since pre-COVID. and this use in gym circles has given rise to some very interesting names. There's something called the Wolverine stack, which is a combination of the BPC 157 and TB 500, sort of referring to self-healing qualities like Wolverine is supposed to have in the X-Men.

Sideshna also told me that if one adds the copper peptide to this wolverine stack, it is called the glow stack. And the peptides and peptide combinations like this are usually acquired by users on Reddit threads and Instagram pages of quote-unquote sellers and increasingly on the D2C websites of wellness brands like peptide OS. Even marketplaces like India Mart sell this stuff. But Sardesna pointed out that the people actually making and selling these peptides here aren't specialists in the space. If you go on to India Mart you can see the names of a lot of manufacturers making them. And they don't happen to be peptide experts.

These are companies which are making cancer drugs and peptides on the side. Or perhaps testosterone for something. And they may not be making them end-to-end either. They may be sourcing like an intermediate material from China and then selling here or even just like directly selling here. The non-specialist aspect is also probably what is visible in the prices. of these drugs. Suddishna told me that at $1,000,4,000 a while, these peptides cost about a fifth of GLB1 drugs. But because the market is so unregulated, prices can obviously vary a lot.

A peptide API professional told Soudetha that these higher prices come with the promise of better purity and testing, though none of it can be verified. And that lack of verification is where so much of the problem lies. The thing is, these peptides vary a lot in purity, mainly because of the lack of studies in this space. A US study from this year, for instance, tested over 6,000 grey market peptides and found around 40 to 70% of them compliant with basic quality checks. Around 15% had bacterial contamination and the worst TB 500 sample was found to be only 7.5% pure. Obviously, you can expect something similar or even worse in India. In fact, did you know that some New York bodega stores sell peptides in the US?

Like, literally, imagine walking into a convenience store and buying an injectable shot. So, Wyatt actually put out a report last week where they tested a few peptides from one of these stores. Turns out, none of the four wires they bought and tested actually had the active ingredients that were on the labels. So, either they were mislabeled or they did have the active ingredients at some point, but somewhere down the supply chain line, they were eventually corrupted beyond recognition. This article also mentioned that a woman had actually passed away this year after receiving a peptide injection from an unlicensed medical spa. So this stuff can actually be dangerous. All of this, of course, though, leads to the main question. If these peptides are not coming,

from licensed pharma companies, where are they coming from? Stay tuned. Almost all these webites, even the ones in circulation in the US, trace back to China. They either start as spinach products over there or as the active pharmaceutical ingredients or APIs that are then assembled here. Soudeshna explained to me that getting them to India isn't actually that hard because of how importers label them. Very cleverly what some of the importers are doing.

is they mention the name of the logistics company as the supplier. In one of these, for example, DHL was listed as a supplier. So the end tracing is not done easily. And when you import it for research use, that makes it an easy channel for it to come here, even if it's not something which is available for sale. And once the drug is in the country, no one down the chain is really checking who made it

and what's in it. The thing is, even regulators are a little confused about how to approach peptides. Earlier this year, a US FDA advisory committee actually carried out a vote on whether some of these substances should even be allowed to be made in the US. Now, this is not the same as being approved, by the way. This is just an opportunity for pharma companies in the US to make them first. And the nature of this judgment is very interesting to me. because if you see, for example, for BPC 157,

the committee voted 8.6 as a yes to make it, which means only a vote or two decided whether or not they were okay. The one compound which was rejected here was a peptide for sleep. And it was only outvoted by a single vote. So that's about as close as the US has come to actually legalizing it. You know, the place where this is already, being casually sold in bodega's where there are documented parties and raves with people just injecting themselves with this stuff. And the USFTA has also publicly stated that they have no record

of safety or efficacy with these compounds either. Meanwhile, India's own anti-doping authority prohibits many of these substances in competitive sports. Obviously, this hasn't done much for the way regular consumers use them or get them. And if anything, it might even have had the opposite effect. In a way, the chaos is what makes this peptide market feel alive. There is this temporary supply chain which makes it feel exclusive and exciting and makes it feel like a thing that you want to get your hands on. But obviously, the excitement skips over some complications. Sudezsche told me that some sellers take very specific steps to be extra careful.

One of her sources told her that peptide wires are often concerned. combined with a steroid shot in Indian clinics, which are administered in case of an allergic reaction. They believe that this is pretty much an admission from sellers that even they don't know what's going to happen. That being said, though, the cancer party did raise questions about these drugs, like where they come from in the first place. And it has also raised awareness about the complexities in the Sondregulated market. And while Indiana Jones may have had the archaeological experience to tell which cup was seen, the right one. Consumers right now have no way to tell if the cup they choose is the one that works. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken India's first subscriber-focused business

news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of our subscriber-only offerings. A full subscription offers daily long-form feature stories, newsletters and a whole bunch of premium podcasts. To subscribe, head to the Ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on the top of the Ken website. Today's episode was hosted and produced by my colleague Rachel Vargis and edited by Rajiv Sien.