Show Notes
How do peptides get from a factory in China to a price list in your DMs?
Conrad Campbell is a Scotsman building a peptide factory in China. After ten years in the military, he built businesses selling furniture, opening gyms, and trading online. Then he entered the peptide business, sourcing products from Chinese manufacturers for clients in the West. Understanding the supply chain gave him an idea: build a factory of his own. A fairly committed approach to checking your supplier. Along the way, he learned how the gray market operates. He describes products leaving factories through the back door, passing through warehouses and middlemen, and being sold over WhatsApp. Plenty of people taking a cut. Rather less clarity about who takes responsibility. Conrad says he wants to make that trade safer and more transparent. His ambitions sit within a much bigger story: empty biotech parks built for future demand, manufacturers planning decades ahead, and a Chinese industry he believes the US will struggle to catch. He explains:
■ Building a peptide factory in China ■ The gray market’s back doors and middlemen ■ What purity tests don’t tell you ■ Inside China’s empty biotech parks ■ Why America could spend billions and still trail China Chapters
(00:00) - Intro
(03:19) - Building a peptide factory in China
(04:47) - Why Conrad chose China
(07:39) - Can America catch up with China?
(09:57) - From e-commerce to peptides
(13:42) - Conrad’s business model
(14:58) - The risks of buying gray-market peptides
(17:20) - The money behind the peptide trade
(19:03) - The next 10 years of peptides
(20:49) - The Limitless pill and better sleep
Watch the full episode on YouTube
Further reading
Research: A study of Chinese suppliers advertising GLP-1 medicines online, including their marketing, shipping, and quality claims: Made in China: The international supply of illicit semaglutide and weight-loss medicines online. JAMA Network Open: A 2024 study testing semaglutide purchased online without a prescription for drug content, purity, and contamination: Safety and Risk Assessment of No-Prescription Online Semaglutide Purchases. FDA: Manufacturing standards, quality controls, and why testing a finished product is only part of the process: Facts About Current Good Manufacturing Practice. FDA: Current concerns around unapproved GLP-1 drugs, including products sold directly to consumers under research-use labels: FDA: Concerns with unapproved GLP-1 drugs. Read the full transcript
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Peptide Show explores the science, medicine, business, and people shaping the rapidly evolving world of peptides. Presented by Longr: longr.io
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