Peptide News Digest

Brazil Clears Dr. Reddy's Generic Semaglutide, AstraZeneca Reportedly Bids for Rhythm, BPC-157 Use Climbs in Clinical Notes

Brazil clears Dr. Reddy's generic semaglutide, AstraZeneca reportedly bids $10 billion for Rhythm, and U.S. clinical notes show BPC-157 use up 22-fold.

11 stories · Covering regulatory, industry, research, clinical-trials

Editor's Note

Three of today's items follow medicines sold outside regulated channels. Dutch reporters counted 203 unlicensed online pharmacies selling GLP-1 drugs and unapproved retatrutide, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is collecting proposals for a campaign against counterfeit medicines, and a review of U.S. clinical notes found newly documented BPC-157 users rising from 23 in 2020 to 508 in 2025, usually supplied by compounders or gray-market vendors. Those notes record what patients said helped them, not what the peptide did, and the nference authors say so plainly. On the regulated side, Dr. Reddy's added a generic semaglutide pen to Brazil's diabetes market. The reported AstraZeneca offer for Rhythm would put a price of about $10 billion on setmelanotide, a peptide that works through the MC4R receptor rather than GLP-1 and is approved for rare genetic and hypothalamic forms of obesity.

Regulatory

Dr. Reddy's Wins Brazilian Approval for Generic Semaglutide Pens for Type 2 Diabetes, to Launch With Aché

Brazil's health regulator ANVISA granted Dr. Reddy's marketing authorization for a generic semaglutide injection, the Indian drugmaker said on November 5. The once-weekly multi-dose pens come in 2 mg/1.5 mL and 4 mg/3 mL presentations for adults whose type 2 diabetes is not controlled by diet and exercise, and Dr. Reddy's plans to launch them with Brazilian partner Aché. The company cited IQVIA data putting Brazil's semaglutide diabetes market at about $244.6 million over the 12 months to September 2026.

#generic-semaglutide #semaglutide #generics #brazil #type-2-diabetes
Industry

AstraZeneca Reportedly Offers About $10 Billion for Rhythm, Maker of the MC4R Peptide Drug Imcivree

AstraZeneca offered $124 a share, roughly $10 billion, for Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter, and Rhythm shares closed up 24% on November 4, BioSpace reported. Rhythm's setmelanotide (Imcivree), a peptide that activates the MC4R appetite receptor, won its third U.S. indication in March 2026 for acquired hypothalamic obesity and brought in $92.1 million in third-quarter sales. William Blair called Rhythm "a great strategic pickup for AstraZeneca."

#astrazeneca #rhythm-pharmaceuticals #setmelanotide #mc4r #acquisitions
Research

Clinical Notes Show Documented BPC-157 Use Rose 22-Fold From 2020 to 2025, but the Study Can't Credit Reported Benefits to the Peptide

Researchers at nference used a large language model, checked by physicians, to scan de-identified notes from a U.S. health-system network and confirmed BPC-157 use in 1,039 patients; newly documented users climbed from 23 in 2020 to 508 in 2025. When the source was recorded, it was usually a compounding pharmacy or gray-market vendor, and 56.6% of users also took other agents such as testosterone, NSAIDs, or TB-500. Improvement was noted for 79% of the 354 users with a recorded response, almost all of it patient-reported, and the authors write that the study establishes neither efficacy nor safety.

#bpc-157 #gray-market #compounding #real-world-evidence #nference
Regulatory

Dutch Reporters Count 203 Illegal Online Shops Selling Weight-Loss Drugs, Mostly Supplied From China

An RTL Nieuws investigation found 203 illegal online pharmacies selling tirzepatide, semaglutide, and in most cases retatrutide, a Lilly drug still in trials; more than half were under six months old and none appeared on the Dutch register of authorized online pharmacies, NL Times reported. Broadcaster BNR said the sites are mainly supplied from China, and Dutch customs told BNR it had intercepted hundreds of peptide shipments through September. Marloes Dankers of the Institute for Responsible Use of Medicines called the number of illegal pharmacies "a major societal problem."

#retatrutide #gray-market #online-pharmacies #netherlands #china
Regulatory

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Seeks Ideas for a Counterfeit-Medicine Campaign That Could Recruit Celebrities and Influencers

The USPTO posted a request for information on a nationwide public awareness campaign about counterfeit drugs and medical devices, with videos, a microsite, social media, and plans to "identify and pitch key individuals (influencers, celebrities, journalists)," Newsweek reported. The notice is market research, not a contract, and industry responses are due November 16. Newsweek's report cited past U.S. seizures of counterfeit Ozempic and of fake semaglutide, tirzepatide, and retatrutide injections.

#counterfeit #uspto #ozempic #semaglutide
Industry

Kimberly-Clark Says Rogaine Sales Are Up 30% This Year and Points to GLP-1 Hair Loss as a Possible Reason

Kimberly-Clark, which has completed its acquisition of Tylenol and Band-Aid owner Kenvue, reported a 30% year-to-date increase in sales of Rogaine hair-loss medication, CNBC reported on November 5. CEO Michael Hsu suggested the growth could be driven by adoption of GLP-1 drugs, which carry hair loss as a potential side effect. He offered it as a possible explanation, not a measured one.

#hair-loss #side-effects #kimberly-clark #glp-1
Clinical Trials

MetaVia's DA-1726 Cut Liver Fat 68% and Weight 13.5% Versus Placebo in a 16-Week Phase 1 Study of 19 Adults

MetaVia reported interim Part 3B results for DA-1726, a once-weekly oxyntomodulin analog that activates GLP-1 and glucagon receptors, presented at the Precision Liver Symposium in Denver on November 4. In 15 otherwise healthy adults with obesity titrated to 64 mg and four on placebo, placebo-adjusted weight loss was 13.5% at day 109, and liver fat in a 16-person MRI substudy was 68% lower than with placebo. Seven of 15 treated participants vomited, including one serious case, and the company plans a 48-week Phase 2 study in MetALD and alcohol-associated liver disease starting in the second half of 2027.

#da-1726 #metavia #glucagon #phase-1 #fatty-liver
Research

VA Study of 68,881 Veterans Starting NSAIDs Finds No Higher Stomach-Bleeding Risk on GLP-1 Drugs Than on SGLT2 or DPP-4 Inhibitors

Iowa City VA researchers followed veterans with type 2 diabetes who started a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug while already taking a GLP-1 drug (13,433), an SGLT2 inhibitor (24,480), or a DPP-4 inhibitor (30,968). A GI bleed or ulcer within 12 months occurred in 0.9%, 1.0%, and 1.0%, and adjusted hazard ratios for GLP-1 users were 0.85 versus SGLT2 inhibitors and 0.82 versus DPP-4 inhibitors, neither statistically significant. The observational study appears in the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy.

#glp-1 #nsaids #gastrointestinal-bleeding #type-2-diabetes #real-world-evidence
Clinical Trials

University Hospital Basel Crossover Trial: Four Weeks of Dulaglutide Lowered Prolactin in 24 Healthy Young Men

In a secondary analysis of a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial (NCT04687514), 24 healthy men with a median age of 24.5 took dulaglutide 1.5 mg weekly and placebo for four weeks each. Prolactin fell by 31.1 mU/L on dulaglutide and rose by 44.6 mU/L on placebo, and the 95% confidence interval for the estimated difference ran from −298.5 to −0.1 mU/L, just excluding zero. Prolactin levels were not associated with sexual desire, and the authors call for further study of GLP-1 drugs' hormonal effects.

#glp-1 #prolactin #crossover-trial #hormones
Research

Tashkent and Pushchino Team Uses AI to Design Short Peptides That Selectively Activate AMPA or NMDA Glutamate Receptors in Rat Neurons

Researchers from Uzbekistan's Centre for Advanced Technologies and the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Cell Biophysics combined a generative neural network, AlphaFold2, and molecular dynamics to design short peptides aimed at the AMPA and NMDA glutamate receptors, which carry much of the signaling between neurons and are targets for neurological drugs. Synthesized candidates caused concentration-dependent calcium influx in rat cortical and hippocampal cultures that the blockers CNQX and MK-801 abolished, and peptides built for one receptor did not act on the other. The responses were weaker than those to the standard agonists AMPA and NMDA, the PNAS Nexus paper reports.

#peptide-design #ai-drug-discovery #glutamate-receptors #alphafold
Research

Xiamen University's Mud Crab Peptide Sparadin118-140 Kills Pseudomonas Spoilage Bacteria and Extends the Shelf Life of Chilled Tilapia

Xiamen University researchers synthesized Sparadin118–140, a 23-residue helical peptide from the mud crab Scylla paramamosain, and found it killed three Pseudomonas species by disrupting their membranes, kept working at refrigeration temperature, and broke up biofilms. It also dampened inflammation caused by P. aeruginosa lipopolysaccharide in macrophages and zebrafish. On refrigerated tilapia fillets it slowed bacterial growth and spoilage about as well as the preservative potassium sorbate, according to the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry paper.

#antimicrobial-peptides #food-preservation #pseudomonas #marine-peptides

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