A plain-English guide
Peptides: what’s legal, what’s prescribed, and what to avoid
Which peptides are FDA-approved, which can be lawfully prescribed and compounded — and how to recognize the sellers that left medicine entirely.
Tap a state for its local rules
Search “peptides” and you’ll find several different worlds wearing one name: FDA-approved prescription drugs, collagen powder at the grocery store, a small set of preparations licensed pharmacies can lawfully compound — and a sprawl of online vendors selling vials labeled research use only. The word tells you what a molecule is made of, not whether it’s approved, effective, or legal. This guide separates those worlds honestly: which peptides are actually FDA-approved, how a legitimate prescription works, where NAD+ fits (spoiler: it isn’t a peptide), and the red flags that tell you a seller has left medicine entirely.
“Peptide” is chemistry, not a credential
A peptide is a short chain of amino acids — smaller than a protein, larger than a single amino acid. Your body makes thousands of them. Insulin is a peptide. Semaglutide is a peptide — GLP-1 stands for glucagon-like peptide-1. Being “a peptide” says nothing about whether a product is approved, effective, or legal. The question that matters is always the same: FDA-approved drug, lawfully compounded preparation, or unapproved research compound?
Everything here is made of amino acids — the length is the only difference.
A peptide is a short chain of amino acids — larger than a single amino acid, smaller than a protein, which is a much longer chain folded into a three-dimensional structure.
The two legitimate lanes
FDA-approved peptide drugs
These went through the full approval process — large trials, defined manufacturing, labeled dosing, post-market safety monitoring — and the list is longer than most people expect: insulin; semaglutide (Wegovy®, Ozempic®), tirzepatide (Zepbound®, Mounjaro®), and liraglutide (Saxenda®); teriparatide (Forteo®) for osteoporosis; tesamorelin (Egrifta®) for HIV-associated lipodystrophy; bremelanotide (Vyleesi®) for hypoactive sexual desire disorder. Each approval belongs to a specific product for a specific use, and each is prescription-only — a licensed clinician decides whether it’s appropriate for you. A molecule’s name on a “research grade” vial does not inherit the approval earned by the drug.
Lawfully compounded preparations
A second, narrower lane: preparations a state-licensed compounding pharmacy may prepare for a specific patient against a valid prescription, under §503A of federal law. Very few peptides qualify — the ingredient needs a lawful compounding pathway, which the headline “research peptides” do not have. Sermorelin, a synthetic analog of growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH) — the signal the body uses to prompt the pituitary gland's own growth hormone release, is one that does. The dividing line is the most misrepresented fact in this market; we wrote a full plain-English guide to the FDA’s compounding rules and what’s changing if you want the detail.
The “research use only” market
The peptides most heavily marketed online — BPC-157, TB-500, ipamorelin, CJC-1295, and similar — are not FDA-approved for any use and are not on the FDA’s list of substances allowed in pharmacy compounding, which means no licensed US pharmacy may legally prepare them. That’s why they’re sold with “research use only” labels: the sticker exists to shift legal risk to the buyer, not to make the product legitimate. It also means no verified chain of custody for identity, purity, or sterility — a vial might contain what the label says, in the dose the label says, prepared sterilely. Or it might not, and there’s no way for the buyer to know. The FDA’s advisory review of several of these compounds is genuinely underway, but advisory votes don’t change legal status — as of this writing, none is legally compoundable.
Red flags, in order of importance: no prescription required; “research use only” or “not for human consumption” labels; no named, licensed pharmacy; no licensed clinician anywhere in the process; payment by wire, crypto, or app only. Any one of these is disqualifying — regardless of price, reviews, or how scientific the website looks.
Is NAD+ a peptide? (No — here’s why it comes up)
NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) is one of the most searched “peptides” — and it isn’t one. It’s a coenzyme, a molecule your cells use in energy metabolism; peptides are chains of amino acids. The mix-up happens because the same clinics and wellness programs tend to offer both, so the words travel together. Chemistry aside, the questions worth asking are identical: is a licensed clinician reviewing your health history, and is a licensed pharmacy preparing what you receive? The Pallas NAD+ program is built on exactly that chain — and the full chemistry explainer lives in Is NAD+ a peptide?
What Pallas offers
Pallas evaluates compounds one at a time, and the bar is the law — not the demand. Two clinician-prescribed programs are available today, each on its own page, each prescribed only when a US-licensed clinician decides it’s clinically appropriate:
- Compounded sermorelinA synthetic analog of growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH) — the signal the body uses to prompt the pituitary gland's own growth hormone release. $89 for your first month, then $597 every 12 weeks ($199/mo average). Cancel anytime.
- NAD+ — a coenzyme, not a peptideAvailable as a clinician-prescribed injection or nasal spray, from $79 for your first month.
And if weight loss is what brought you here: the peptide-class medications with FDA approval for chronic weight management are the GLP-1s — semaglutide and tirzepatide — not anything sold in a research vial. We cover that honestly in peptides for weight loss: what actually works, and the clinician-guided path lives at the Pallas GLP-1 program.
Peptides by state
Telehealth rules — including whether a video visit is required to start care — vary by state. Teal states have a live guide; the rest are on the way.
Frequently asked questions
Chemically, a peptide is a short chain of amino acids — smaller than a protein, larger than a single amino acid. Your body makes thousands of them; insulin is a peptide, and so are the GLP-1 medications (GLP-1 stands for glucagon-like peptide-1). The word tells you what a molecule is made of, not whether it's approved, effective, or legal — which is why the same term covers FDA-approved drugs, collagen powder at the grocery store, and unapproved vials sold online. The category isn't the credential.
More than most people expect — but not the ones the vendor sites sell. Approved peptide drugs include insulin; the GLP-1 medications semaglutide (Wegovy®, Ozempic®), tirzepatide (Zepbound®, Mounjaro®), and liraglutide (Saxenda®, Victoza®); teriparatide (Forteo®) for osteoporosis; tesamorelin (Egrifta®) for HIV-associated lipodystrophy; and bremelanotide (Vyleesi®) for hypoactive sexual desire disorder in premenopausal women. One important nuance: approval belongs to a specific product for a specific use — the same molecule's name on a "research grade" vial does not inherit that approval.
It depends entirely on which peptide, obtained how. FDA-approved peptide drugs are legal with a valid prescription, like any prescription medicine. A small number of other compounds, such as sermorelin, have a lawful compounding pathway: a licensed clinician prescribes them for a specific patient and a state-licensed compounding pharmacy prepares them. The "research use only" peptides sold online — BPC-157, TB-500, ipamorelin, and similar — are not approved for human use and are not on the FDA's list of substances allowed in compounding; the label doesn't create an exception, it signals that no one is accountable for what's in the vial.
No — and it's one of the most common mix-ups in this space. NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) is a coenzyme, a molecule your cells use in energy metabolism; peptides are chains of amino acids. NAD+ gets grouped with peptides because the same clinics and wellness programs tend to offer both, but chemically they're different categories. The practical questions are the same, though: is a licensed clinician reviewing your health history, and is a licensed pharmacy preparing what you receive?
Some do, for specific things, with real evidence — and the word "peptides" borrows that credibility for everything else. The FDA-approved peptide drugs earned approval through large clinical trials for their specific indications. For the research compounds sold online, human evidence is mostly animal data, small early-phase studies, or nothing at all in the peer-reviewed literature — "not established" is the accurate summary. And for compounded preparations prescribed by clinicians, the honest framing is clinical judgment, not trial-proven outcomes. If a seller promises guaranteed healing, fat loss, or age reversal from a vial, that's a marketing claim the evidence doesn't support.
Through the same chain every legitimate medicine uses: a telehealth or in-person visit where a US-licensed clinician reviews your health history, a prescription written only when clinically appropriate, and a state-licensed US pharmacy that prepares and ships your medication. Legitimate services can name the clinician who reviewed you and the pharmacy that dispensed to you. What you cannot do legally is buy peptides from a website with no prescription and no pharmacy — those sales sit outside medicine entirely, whatever the checkout page looks like.
No. Compounded preparations — including the sermorelin and NAD+ programs Pallas offers — are prepared per-patient by state-licensed US compounding pharmacies and are not FDA-approved. That is exactly why the process starts with a US-licensed clinician who reviews your health history and prescribes only when clinically appropriate — and why the sourcing runs through FDA-registered ingredient suppliers rather than a gray-market channel.
The honest answer: "peptide" is a chemistry term, not a safety rating, so the question only makes sense one compound and one source at a time. FDA-approved peptide drugs have defined dosing, published safety data, and post-market monitoring — and still require a clinician's judgment about whether they're appropriate for you. A research-vial peptide has none of that: no verified contents, no sterility assurance, no accountable manufacturer, and in most cases little or no human safety data. Whatever the compound, the pathway is the safety question.
Clinician-prescribed care, the lawful way
The online intake takes about five minutes. A US-licensed clinician reviews your health history and prescribes only when clinically appropriate — and tells you honestly if it’s not a fit.