Retatrutide, the most powerful weight-loss drug in development, is not expected to hit the U.S. market before next year, at the earliest. But Adil Kalam, a 37-year-old in Brooklyn, already has 20 vials of it in his freezer.<\/p>\n
Mr. Kalam used Bitcoin to purchase the drug from an online retailer selling $99 vials labeled \u201cfor research purposes only.\u201d His first order arrived in a cardboard box, the vials of powdered medication packaged in bubble wrap. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt didn\u2019t really inspire confidence,\u201d Mr. Kalam admitted.<\/p>\n
Mr. Kalam and eight of his friends order the drug in bulk. He understands that there is a risk in taking a drug that has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. But he didn\u2019t want to wait for the regulatory process to play out if he could take it sooner.<\/p>\n
Mr. Kalam is tapping into a thriving black market for retatrutide, a peptide medication developed by Eli Lilly. On social media, influencers and medical spas advertise the drug using code words like \u201cratatouille\u201d for retatrutide or \u201cpeps\u201d for peptides to skirt restrictions on advertising drugs online. More dedicated users buy in bulk from China, trading recommendations for sellers over conversations on Reddit, Discord and WhatsApp, and pooling their resources to get third-party testing.<\/p>\n
There are no clear estimates of how big this market is, but the information experts do have suggests it is sizable. An analysis of F.D.A. data<\/a> by the Partnership for Safe Medicines, a nonprofit coalition linked to the pharmaceutical industry, showed that 15 pounds \u2014 perhaps hundreds of thousands of doses \u2014 of retatrutide have flowed into the country between January and April 2026. Some of those doses may have been shipped to scientists studying the drug. But a portion of that is probably going to the illicit market, said Shabbir Imber Safdar, the executive director of the nonprofit.<\/p>\n \u201cThe bottom line is, the demand is fully there,\u201d said Timothy Mackey, a professor at the University of California San Diego who studies counterfeit medications. \u201cAnd there are lots of ways to get it.\u201d<\/p>\n Eli Lilly has warned that products claiming to contain retatrutide may be contaminated or contain other substances entirely. \u201cAny claim that black market retatrutide is the same as Lilly\u2019s genuine medicine as studied in clinical trials is false,\u201d Michael Jamison, a spokesman for the company, wrote.<\/p>\n A Murky Marketplace<\/p>\n The black market for retatrutide is an extreme example of consumers flouting the traditional medical system to get their hands on potent new weight-loss drugs. Millions of people have sought out unapproved compounded versions<\/a> of these drugs from telehealth companies and medical spas as they look for cheaper and more accessible alternatives to brand-name versions.<\/p>\n While there is no way to fully capture who is seeking out retatrutide online, customers for the drug seem to include people looking to lose more weight than they can with drugs already on the market, as well as bodybuilders and biohackers who also use other peptides<\/a>.<\/p>\n Many of the people taking what they believe to be retatrutide buy it from online storefronts, which list the drug as a research chemical that is not for human use \u2014 a disclaimer that may let them take advantage of a loophole in drug regulation.<\/p>\n These websites often ship the drug as a powder that customers prepare and inject.<\/p>\n Other users buy the drug from WhatsApp, Telegram and Discord groups. In one Telegram chat, a user posted dozens of videos a day showing a fridge stocked with vials for sale. In another Telegram group, this one with over 1,400 members, users replied to messages showing boxes that claimed to contain retatrutide and asked whether they could pay in Bitcoin.<\/p>\n These groups are often run by middle men who place bulk orders of what they say is retatrutide, typically from Chinese labs, and then repackage it or use it to fill empty injection pens, said Luke Turnock, a senior lecturer in criminology at the University of Lincoln in England who studies peptides. Some sellers add their own branding and logos, like illustrations of molecules, that give a scientific sheen to their products.<\/p>\n Some people have even bought these medications from health providers. In April, a federal grand jury indicted a Utah physician who had allegedly sold vials of retatrutide and other peptides to more than 200 patients. According to the indictment, that doctor made his own labels and did not disclose to patients that the medications had been ordered online from a company in China.<\/p>\n In some cases, patients have been able to fill prescriptions from providers at compounding pharmacies. The F.D.A. has warned companies that make drug ingredients to stop selling retatrutide to compounders. The agency cited one of those companies for unsanitary conditions, including \u201cblack chunks\u201d in some of its pharmaceutical ingredients.<\/p>\n