If you haven’t been watching what Lilly and Novo Nordisk are doing right now, buckle up. They’ve been firing off cease-and-desist letters to compounding pharmacies over tirzepatide and semaglutide for months, claiming IP infringement on Mounjaro and Ozempic.

But now they’ve crossed into new territory: they’re issuing the same legal threats around retatrutide, and even more eyebrow-raising… SS-31, a peptide being explored for sarcopenia.

And this is where things get interesting.

Why This Matters

Peptides are not exotic black-box chemicals. They’re short chains of amino acids — the same building blocks that make up every protein in your body. If you take BCAAs or EAAs, you’re already consuming “peptides,” just in a different format.

So the idea that a company can claim ownership over the use, compounding, or distribution of naturally occurring amino-acid sequences raises a huge question:

Where does intellectual property end and biology begin?

If these new cease-and-desist letters stick, the precedent gets dangerous:

  • Can a corporation effectively lock down naturally occurring sequences just because they tested, purified, or delivered them differently?
  • Does this open the door to proprietary claims over any peptide that shows therapeutic promise?
  • What happens to innovation when access gets shut off at the compounding level — the very space where affordability and experimentation often live?

Here’s the technicality: Big Pharma isn’t claiming ownership over amino acids themselves — they’re claiming ownership over specific formulations, manufacturing processes, delivery methods, dosages, and clinical applications tied to their FDA-approved drugs.

And because peptides are most effective when injected subcutaneously, they fall into a regulatory category where the FDA gives much more deference to drug IP, not supplement law.

It’s not about the peptide existing in nature. It’s about how it’s delivered, how it’s made, and what the company claims it can treat.

Is that distinction valid? That’s what the courts will eventually decide.

And Now Enter MAHA & RFK JR.

The Modern America Healthy Again (MAHA) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have been vocal about the need for more democratized access to peptides — especially as they relate to age management, metabolic support, and muscle preservation.

Kennedy’s stance is clear: Peptides should not be gatekept by pharma giants when they’re fundamentally naturally occurring biological sequences with enormous public-health potential.

And let’s be honest… it’s very hard to take the moralizing about “public safety” seriously when Kennedy’s own physical transformation strongly suggests he’s using peptides himself. He walks the walk, or injects the inject, while warning that the rest of America shouldn’t be locked out of the same tools for resilience, vitality, or anti-aging.

Whether you agree with his politics or not, he’s calling out the elephant in the room: If these molecules are safe enough for elites, they shouldn’t be illegal for everyone else.

The Bigger Picture

This isn’t just about GLP-1s or SS-31.
This is about:

  • the future of longevity medicine
  • the affordability of metabolic interventions
  • whether compounding remains viable
  • who gets access to the next generation of therapeutics

If every peptide gets fenced off behind a proprietary wall, we’re headed toward a two-tiered system:
those who can access healthspan tools… and those who can’t.

My Take

We’re watching the collision of biology, innovation, and IP law in real time. And if we’re not paying attention now, we’re going to wake up in a world where naturally occurring biological sequences are treated like proprietary software.

Whether you’re in biotech, wellness, food science, or compounding, this moment matters.

Curious what others in the industry think: Is this a legitimate protection of IP… or an overreach that risks stifling innovation?