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On TikTok, a 21-year-old fitness influencer is spruiking a drug that hasn’t even finished clinical trials.
“This stuff is actually hard to come by in Australia, so I’ll leave a reputable source in the description,” the Sydneysider says. “Obviously, not approved for human use, so do with it as you will.”
He is talking about the supposed benefits of retatrutide, a peptide currently being tested for weight loss and yet to be approved by a regulator anywhere in the world.
In another video titled “How to stop being pale for good”, the influencer discusses the tanning effects of melanotan II – an unapproved synthetic peptide that increases melanin production in the skin, and which medical authorities have warned can come with serious side effects.
In a different clip he addresses the drug’s potential skin cancer risks, concluding: “Use at your own risk.”
When viewers ask where to get these products for themselves, he promotes a peptide retailer that he owns, business records show. (The influencer did not respond to a request for comment.)
He is one operator riding the social media-driven boom for injectable peptides in Australia – a market of drugs purported to enhance aesthetic appearance and physical performance. Yet many are experimental and illegal to possess without a prescription.
Advertising prescription-only or unapproved drugs to the public, including on social media, is also prohibited. But that hasn’t stopped a range of influencers from providing dosing instructions and promoting them as the path to everything from fat loss to tanned skin.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) declined to comment on specific websites or accounts, but said the agency had requested the removal of more than 13,700 online ads, many involving wellness and beauty therapeutic goods, in the 2024–25 financial year.
“In general … prescription medicines and unapproved therapeutic goods cannot be advertised to the public, including via testimonials and endorsements,” a spokesperson said.
The peptide market in Australia has two broad entry points. One is direct sales from overseas or from an online retailer such as the one promoted by the influencer. The other is where drugs are obtained via prescription from doctors associated with wellness sites, which is legal in specific circumstances provided “all other clinically appropriate options” have been considered.
What are peptides?
Peptides, the building blocks of proteins, occur naturally but can also be manufactured. They have varied functions in the body – insulin and endorphins being two examples. GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic and Mounjaro are now among the best-known peptides.
Yet there is limited evidence for the safety and efficacy in humans of some of the peptides most often mentioned on social media.
Dr Ian Musgrave, a molecular pharmacologist at the University of Adelaide, says injecting many unapproved peptides amounts to “just punching holes in yourself and wasting money”.
“Most of these have shown some form of activity in either in vitro models – tissue culture and so on – or animal models, but they haven’t been confirmed in humans clinical trials,” he says.
Musgrave gives the example of AOD-9604, which is marketed as a fat burning drug and was injected by Essendon players in the 2013 AFL supplements scandal.
“Even though it’s worked in animal models, it failed utterly in humans – it has no effect on weight loss in humans in clinical trials at all,” he says.
“Every time you inject yourself with a substance, there is a potential for harm. If you’re injecting peptides then you have a risk of having an immune response to those peptides … which may be dangerous.”
‘Laboratory use only’
On forums dedicated to GLP-1 weight loss drugs, China-based vendors advertise shipping times to Australia. Price lists shared by Telegram sellers with Guardian Australia advertise 10 vials of retatrutide for $240, while human growth hormone – also a peptide – goes for much less.
Guardian Australia has found almost two dozen websites claiming to sell these products to Australians for “research purposes”, yet many also offer individual dosing calculators and display customer testimonials. In some cases, fitness influencers promote discount codes for suppliers that claim to supply laboratories.
Business and website records show several of these sites appear to be owned by men in their early 20s based in suburban Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
One company, owned by a 23-year-old in Melbourne, advertises “Premium. Pure. Reta” and ships directly to consumers. Nevertheless, the website says the products are for “laboratory use only”.
The TGA spokesperson said medicines imported into and supplied in Australia generally must be included in the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods.
Unapproved therapeutic goods can only be legally imported for clinical trials or for personal use with strict conditions, and the TGA has issued fines for alleged unlawful import of unapproved peptides.
Many unapproved peptides are classified as “poisons for which possession without authority is illegal”.
“You cannot get around those regulations by providing ‘for research purposes’ only,” says Prof Nial Wheate, a medicines researcher at Macquarie University. “Anyone who accepts that compound must have a legal reason to have it, and for most people that means you must have a valid prescription.”
Retatrutide, a Lilly GLP-1 drug, is undergoing clinical trials in Australia but is advertised for sale across “research” sites.
A spokesperson for Lilly said no one could legally sell it for human use. “Counterfeit, black-market, and research-use only medicines are untested, unregulated and potentially dangerous,” they said.
Peter Magic has seen first-hand the remarkable boom in grey and black market peptides.
His company Janoshik was one of the earliest labs to offer a purity testing service for anyone willing to pay and send a sample to the Czech Republic – Janoshik certificates are now displayed as markers of authenticity on the websites of both “research peptide” sellers and major manufacturers in China.
Until about 2022, Magic says, anabolic steroids were the most common product sent to the lab for testing. Then GLP-1s “exploded overnight”.
He estimates that this year the lab has completed almost 3,000 purity reports (which might include multiple vials) for the weight loss drug tirzepatide, better known as Mounjaro, 2,300 for retatrutide and more than 1,000 for BPC-157 and GHK-Cu.
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The risk of carcinogens
Janoshik also offers screening for toxins such as heavy metals. Magic has found some mislabelling of products – most dangerously, items sold as Ozempic pens that actually contain insulin – but said he has generally seen accurate results for peptide purity.
Nevertheless, a vendor’s Janoshik certificate is no guarantee of what is actually sent to consumers.
“There’s a saying I like: don’t trust, verify,” Magic said. “I generally advise people against trusting people on the internet.”
Dr Timothy Piatkowski, a lecturer at Griffith University, ran a product testing service as part of his research into harm reduction approaches for performance enhancing drugs (IPEDs) such as anabolic steroids obtained from underground markets.
He says people also submitted human growth hormone, retatrutide and “every other sort of peptide that I could mention”.
His testing of IPEDs found mislabelled products and traces of carcinogenic heavy metals such as lead, arsenic and cadmium.
Of almost 300 submitted samples of steroids in one year, he estimates only about one in five had the right steroid in them and about 70% were underdosed.
“This is the same market,” he says of peptide products advertised for wellness benefits. “It is a lucrative business for people playing in the grey area, because who are you going to tell [if the product is not what it claims]? There’s no receipt. I can’t go and take this to Fair Trade … There’s nothing you can do.”
Sonya Weith is a peer steroid educator with Queensland Injectors Voice for Advocacy and Action (QuIVAA) who talks to IPED users about harm reduction.
She says she noticed a rise in the number of questions about peptides from about June, particularly related to safe injecting, often of products mailed from overseas.
“We don’t know the dosage,” she says. “We don’t know the strength. And we don’t know if there’s anything else in there that could cause harm.”
The ‘Wolverine stack’
The rise of so-called research peptide retailers is one side of the peptide boom. The other is wellness clinics, which advertise peptide prescription services, often via compounding pharmacies.
Many peptides are classified as prescription-only and, though they are unapproved therapeutic goods, they can be legally accessed under certain circumstances.
But there are legal challenges, particularly around health claims. In 2019, Peptide Clinics Australia was fined $10m for inappropriate and misleading advertising, including suggesting its peptide products would help with anti-ageing, bodybuilding and tanning, among other issues.
Over the past five years, at least eight doctors, health practitioners and pharmacists in New South Wales alone have had licences cancelled or been reprimanded for inappropriately prescribing or dispensing peptides.
When a Guardian Australia reporter sent an inquiry to one clinic, they were sent a price list of potential peptides for prescription, including unapproved therapeutic goods, before any consultation had taken place with a nurse or doctor.
Speaking generally, the TGA spokesperson said stating prices in reference to prescription-only peptides “is likely to be considered an advertisement for that product, and would therefore be unlawful”.
Piatkowski questions the quality of follow-up care, if any, from some online pharmacies.
“Do they have medical supervision? Are they doing blood monitoring?” he says. “It’s just a marketing ploy.”
Sarah (not her real name) is one of an unknown number of Australians now on a peptide regime for fitness.
In her mid-50s, she enjoys high-intensity workouts and was looking for a way to recover more quickly. She found a doctor via a local IV clinic and is now prescribed the “Wolverine stack” – a combination of peptides. Every few months, she cycles in a growth hormone. The products are sent to her chilled in the mail from a compounding chemist.
Sarah is a fan, but she can also see the hype cycle at work in the longevity scene.
“It’s getting sensationalised,” Sarah says. “And so people will start taking advantage of people … I would think, be wary. I mean, this is something that you’re injecting into your body.”
