The PCAC Panelist Conflicts Map: Who FDA Named Monday and What They Sell

On Monday June 29, 2026, the FDA published the names of eight new panelists who will serve on the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee (PCAC) for the July 23-24 meeting reviewing seven peptides for 503A bulks list eligibility (BPC-157, KPV, TB-500, MOTS-c, Emideltide/DSIP, Semax, Epitalon). STAT News reporter Lizzy Lawrence broke a scoop the same day disclosing that at least seven of the eight new members have ties to peptide-related businesses and clinics. The Associated Press, CNN, PBS NewsHour, Washington Times, and dozens of regional outlets ran parallel coverage.

The panel composition is a substantive change from previous PCAC reviews, which the AP described as 'composed of academics and researchers,' versus the new group that 'mainly includes health professionals who prescribe, produce or promote peptides.' The shift matters because PCAC votes are advisory to the FDA, and panel composition is one of the variables the agency weighs when deciding whether to follow the recommendation.

This piece walks through what is publicly known about the named panelists, what their financial ties are, what FDA conflict-of-interest rules require, and how panel composition has historically affected advisory-committee outcomes. The piece is reporting-grade rather than evidence-grade; the substantive peptide-by-peptide question is in the companion FDA briefing-document insight.

FDA advisory committees including PCAC operate under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) and a set of agency-specific conflict-of-interest rules codified at 21 CFR Part 14 and the FDA Advisory Committee Member Handbook. Three points matter.

First, experts with financial stakes in a company or industry are permitted to serve on advisory panels. The rules do not prohibit conflicts; they require disclosure. A panelist with $50,000 in stock in a company directly affected by a vote is not automatically disqualified.

Second, conflicts must be disclosed in writing on FDA Form 3410 and made publicly available before the meeting. The agency must publish a waiver in the Federal Register explaining why each member's expertise outweighs the conflict, with the determination signed by the FDA Commissioner or designee.

Third, members with financial interests in the specific matter under discussion may be required to recuse themselves from voting on that particular item, even if they participate in the panel's broader deliberations. The agency makes the recusal call substance by substance.

The practical implication: the eight new panelists named Monday are permitted to serve, but the FDA will need to publish waivers explaining why each member's expertise outweighs their disclosed conflicts before the July 23-24 meeting. Those waivers have not appeared in the Federal Register as of June 30 publication of this piece.

The Associated Press characterized previous PCAC panels as 'composed of academics and researchers,' versus the new group that 'mainly includes health professionals who prescribe, produce or promote peptides.' That framing is broadly accurate but worth qualifying.

Historical PCAC composition has typically included three or four academic pharmacists, a hospital-pharmacy practitioner, an independent compounding-pharmacy owner, a clinical pharmacologist or pharmaceutical-sciences academic, a consumer representative, and at-large industry positions. The total committee size runs 8 to 14 voting members depending on the meeting. Conflicts have appeared on previous panels (compounding-pharmacy owners review compounding policy, by definition with industry interest) but the academic and research members have traditionally outnumbered industry-practice members.

The new eight-member addition appears to invert that ratio. According to STAT's reporting, at least seven of the eight new panelists have peptide-business ties, and several are public-facing prescribers and promoters rather than research scientists. The Washington Times framed the panel as 'doctors with ties to industry'; PBS NewsHour and CNN used 'experts who promote the unproven chemicals favored by RFK Jr.'

The broader pattern over the past 18 months has been a shift in advisory committee composition across multiple FDA committees toward members aligned with HHS Secretary RFK Jr.'s positions. The PCAC peptide panel is the most-watched test case to date.

Bobby Harshbarger is a Tennessee state senator and pharmacist. He owns or operates compounding-pharmacy practices in Tennessee that prepare peptide preparations. His mother, US Representative Diana Harshbarger (R-TN), is also a pharmacist who owns Holston Drug, a compounding pharmacy in Kingsport, Tennessee.

The congressional link is the part that makes the appointment notable. Diana Harshbarger has been one of the most active members of Congress urging the FDA to ease peptide regulation. She has written formal letters to HHS Secretary RFK Jr. and the FDA Commissioner requesting that the Category 2 peptides be moved to Category 1 and added to the 503A bulks list. Bobby Harshbarger now sits on the PCAC panel that will vote on whether the FDA accepts his mother's policy request.

FDA rules do not prohibit family relationships of this kind. The disclosure requirement covers direct financial interests, not familial advocacy. The agency will need to publish a waiver explaining why Bobby Harshbarger's expertise (compounding-pharmacy practice) outweighs the disclosed family relationship and the resulting indirect interest in the policy outcome his mother has advocated. That waiver had not appeared in the Federal Register as of this piece's June 30 publication.

UC Davis professor Paul Knoepfler told STAT: 'It's concerning that several members of the newly formulated [committee] appear to sell unproven offerings including stem cells and peptides, sometimes both.'

Dr. Haleem Mohammed is a Florida-based physician who runs clinics that sell injections of peptides, vitamins, testosterone, and weight-loss medications. His practice is part of a national chain of clinics dubbed Gameday Men's Health.

The Associated Press reported that the Gameday Men's Health website states: 'compounded medications offered through our services are not FDA-approved, and the FDA does not verify their safety.' The disclaimer is a standard legal notice for clinics dispensing compounded peptide preparations under the existing 503A framework, but it is the disclaimer of a business whose revenue model depends on the policy outcome the PCAC will vote on.

Mohammed's appointment puts a high-volume peptide-clinic operator on the panel that will decide whether peptide compounding becomes formally authorized through the 503A bulks list. If the panel votes affirmatively, his clinic's product offerings move from disclaimer-bound to legally authorized. The financial interest is direct and substantial.

FDA disclosure rules require Mohammed to file Form 3410 reporting his Gameday Men's Health relationship, and the agency will need to publish a waiver. The expertise the agency will likely cite is his experience in peptide-clinic practice, which is genuinely relevant to the question of how the substances are used in real-world clinical settings. The conflict question is whether that experience can be separated from the revenue interest.

Dr. Gabriel Alizaidy is a physician who charges $500 for 'peptide and hormone' consultations. According to the AP reporting, his consultations include advice on 'where to safely get each peptide or compound.' He promotes BPC-157, GHK-Cu, and other peptides to thousands of followers through his Instagram and TikTok accounts.

The consultation-business detail matters because Alizaidy's revenue model is directly tied to peptide demand. If the PCAC vote affirmatively recommends the seven peptides for 503A bulks list addition and the FDA accepts, the legal supply path for his recommended substances opens up, and his consultation practice has more product to advise on. If the panel rejects, his recommendation pool stays restricted to gray-market and research-chemical channels (which is the channel his current advice describes).

The public social-media promotion of named peptides under PCAC review is the operational concern. FDA conflict-of-interest rules cover financial interests but the social-media platform compounds the situation by creating an audience-revenue feedback loop: Alizaidy's TikTok and Instagram following grows as he promotes peptides, and his consultation-fee revenue scales with the audience.

UC Davis professor Paul Knoepfler's broader critique applies here: panelists 'who sell unproven offerings' are weighing rules on the unproven offerings they sell.

The AP and STAT reporting named three of the eight new panelists (Bobby Harshbarger, Haleem Mohammed, Gabriel Alizaidy). The remaining five members have not been individually profiled in public reporting as of June 30.

What is publicly known about the broader group: STAT reported that at least seven of the eight new members have ties to peptide-related businesses and clinics, meaning four of the five not individually profiled also fall into this category. The AP characterized the panel composition as a shift from 'academics and researchers' to 'health professionals who prescribe, produce or promote peptides.'

The panel-composition question will sharpen once the FDA publishes the required disclosure waivers in the Federal Register before the July 23-24 meeting. Each waiver names the panelist, describes the disclosed interest, and explains the FDA Commissioner's determination that expertise outweighs conflict. The waivers are the operational record that lets observers evaluate the conflict-of-interest situation panelist by panelist.

Until those waivers publish, the public-facing picture is what STAT's June 29 scoop established: a panel whose composition has shifted substantially toward peptide-industry practice, with three named members carrying clear conflicts and five others whose situations have not yet been individually disclosed in public reporting.

The panel composition is the variable that may push outcomes away from the FDA staff briefing-document position (which concluded none of the seven peptides has sufficient evidence for 503A bulks list eligibility). Three scenarios.

Scenario one: panel votes broadly affirmative on the seven peptides. This would represent a substantive divergence from the staff briefing. The FDA could accept the panel recommendation (unusual when staff is on the opposite side), modify it (partial acceptance), or reject it. A wholesale affirmative vote followed by FDA acceptance would expand 503A compounding for the seven substances starting within months of the meeting.

Scenario two: panel votes selectively, with some affirmative and some negative. This is the more likely outcome based on PCAC historical patterns. Substances with stronger evidence on safety or historical-use criteria (KPV on safety, DSIP on historical use, MOTS-c on mechanism) may receive affirmative votes; substances with the widest evidence gaps (Epitalon especially, BPC-157 on the gap between marketing and trial evidence) may receive negative votes. The FDA would then make substance-specific decisions on each.

Scenario three: panel follows the staff briefing and votes broadly negative. Even with peptide-industry composition, the panel could split on the substantive evidence picture rather than along industry-interest lines. This scenario depends on which panelists actually attend the meeting (some may recuse due to specific-substance conflicts) and how the deliberation runs.

For each scenario, the FDA's final administrative action follows the PCAC vote by typically 4 to 12 months. Hims & Hers, LifeMD, and Henry Meds telehealth platforms have priced in some scenario-two affirmative-vote upside (Barclays $39 HIMS PT, Canaccord Genuity $32, Leerink's Cherny calling the vote a 'modest binary event'). Scenario one would push prices higher; scenario three would compress them substantially.

The PCAC peptide panel sits inside a broader conversation about FDA advisory-committee composition under HHS Secretary RFK Jr. Over the past 18 months, multiple FDA committees have seen membership changes that observers have characterized as politically motivated rather than evidence-driven. The pattern includes the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), the Antimicrobial Drugs Advisory Committee, and now PCAC.

The legal framework for committee composition is governed by FACA, which requires that membership be 'fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented and the functions to be performed.' Whether the new PCAC composition meets that standard is a question that may face legal challenge. Public-interest groups including the Government Accountability Project and the Project on Government Oversight have flagged the broader committee-composition pattern; specific PCAC litigation has not yet been filed as of June 30.

The broader institutional question runs alongside the substantive peptide question. The seven peptides under review have an evidence picture that the FDA staff briefing has now characterized in substantial detail. The committee's job is to deliberate that evidence and vote. The conflict-of-interest concerns may affect how observers read the eventual outcome, but they do not change what the underlying clinical and safety evidence actually says. The two questions run on parallel tracks.

The PCAC meeting on July 23-24, 2026 will be livestreamed and the recorded vote will be published in the meeting transcript. That transcript will be the operational record observers use to evaluate whether the composition concerns affected the outcome substance by substance.