TL;DR

Tesseract Life Sciences CEO Will West says buyers should start with the raw material’s origin, age, potency and lab testing, then confirm the gummy process was adapted for peptides, since most gummy processes run at 160 to 180 degrees. CMO Ulli Lindauer adds that sourcing, GMP and FDA-registered facilities, and supply chain handling all decide whether a buyer gets what they pay for.

• Will West advises checking the origin, age, potency and quality of a peptide’s raw material, which is most likely sourced from Asia, and notes that not everyone qualifies material with lab tests before using it.
• Gummy manufacturing processes not adapted for peptides can destroy the peptide in seconds or minutes, wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars of raw material and producing a gummy with no peptide content.
• Most gummy processes run at temperatures from 160 to 180, sometimes more. West says the peptide should be introduced at the very end of a low-temperature process while the temperature declines rapidly.
• Ulli Lindauer points out that warehouse inventory and retail supply chains also have to preserve the peptide for as long as possible after manufacturing.
• In one copper peptide project, the outgoing product was crystal clear even though copper peptide is blue, and Tesseract found no evidence of any actual copper peptide in it.
• Lindauer’s ideal is a US source that is grown, manufactured and processed in the US in GMP, FDA-registered facilities.

What should brands watch for when making oral peptide efficacy claims?

Will West: There’s a handful of things they need to be careful about, but it really comes down to the quality and the longevity of the shelf life of the product, starting with the raw material. Where did they source the raw material? Are they sure that they got what they thought they were getting from the raw material? Maybe they sourced it domestically, but probably not likely. They probably have an Asian source to the material. We’ve had some really interesting experiences sourcing material from overseas and have to keep an eye on the origin, the age, the potency, the quality. Lab tests are very helpful for things like that, but not everybody goes to great lengths to qualify the material before it gets used. So you have to make sure that you’re starting with what you think you’re starting with to make the product that you’re really trying to make.

The second thing is, you need to make sure that the product that you’re actually making is formulated in a way that allows those peptides to survive, and there’s two aspects of that. The peptide has to be protected. That’s point number one. And the second one is, if you’re translating a liquid peptide into a powder, for instance, and then putting it in a gummy or a melt or dissolvable strip or something else, that second manufacturing process has to be designed in a way that allows the peptide to sustain the manufacturing process for the gummy or whatever it is you’re making.

There are plenty of ways that those manufacturing processes can destroy the peptide in a matter of seconds or a couple of minutes because they weren’t originally designed for peptides. If they’re not adapted specifically for the peptide, you’re wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars of raw material on the peptide itself, which means that you’ll end up with a gummy with no peptide content, or a melt or whatever the format is. That’s of course no use to the consumer, and it’s really no use to the brand because the consumer will eventually figure out that there’s no value in the gummy, and they’ll switch to another brand.

Why do heat, moisture and manufacturing matter for peptide gummies?

Will West: [Moisture] and heat and some of these other things are the components that break down peptides. And you have those elements in the manufacturing process and residually in the products for some of these formats. In gummies and other formats, you want something that’s low moisture. But ultimately, you want to make sure that you’re not exposing the peptides to too much heat. You want to make sure that you don’t have prolonged exposure to moisture.

Most gummy manufacturing processes, for example, their temperatures range from 160 to 180, sometimes substantially more than that, particularly if the recipe started more for the candy industry than other aspects for gummy making in other segments. And you simply can’t expose raw peptides to 180 degree heat, particularly for an extended amount of time.

So it’s important if you’re trying to adapt a gummy process to put peptides in your gummy that you have a very low temperature process and that you introduce the peptide at the very end of the process and that temperature be declining very rapidly and that there be almost no heat, just for a few minutes at the end of the process while the peptide is exposed to that residual heat. Elements like that are critical considerations because you have to make sure that you don’t destroy the peptide in that manufacturing piece. If you can’t manage those things, then you have no shelf life for the peptide and, therefore, no shelf life for the product.

Ulli Lindauer: Not only in the manufacturing process, but then you start adding the supply chain, depending on where you’re going to sell these and your retailers. And even if you run your own website, your warehouse will have inventory, and you want to make sure that you can hold that inventory as long as possible without losing the actual benefit of the ingredient. Peptides are very expensive. They’re very fragile, and you need to make sure you protect them any way you can.

What should a serious buyer ask before trusting a peptide platform?

Will West: Start at the very beginning, which is, should they trust the brand itself? What reasons do they have to trust the brand? Is the real intellectual property there? Is there history there? What else are they producing? Are they producing it with quality historically? What’s the reputation? Secondly, is there data around the product? Is there a COA? Has it been tested? What do the tests show? Is it from a lab that is credible? How do they know?

And then, of course, use your powers of observation, because that’s a critical thing that often gets overlooked, and I laugh because we have so many examples where people just overlook the obvious. For instance, a partner came to us recently with an opportunity to work on a copper peptide project. And it was hilarious because the client had a sample of the old or outgoing product that we were, I’ll call it, upgrading. Copper peptide is extremely interesting because it’s blue. It’s a rich, beautiful blue within a measurable concentration. But the old product that we were being asked to replace was crystal clear. The more we looked into this, our suspicions were confirmed. We could find no evidence of any actual copper peptide in this product.

A consumer or a patient simply should do a little bit of research behind the product. There are often characteristics of the product that will stand out when they do a little research. A lot of times, that information is either a basic characteristic of the product, as in this case, copper is known to be blue, or it might come from the market itself: other patients, other consumers using the product, providing feedback on their experience with the product. The consumer will often have guidance from the market to tell them what to expect.

That kind of basic research goes a long way. Sometimes the experience comes after they’ve purchased the product and used it themselves. And the other thing I would say is that if they’re not getting an experience pretty quickly after using the product, that’s also going to be a telltale sign, where comparison with other users in the market is extremely valuable feedback.

Ulli Lindauer: It’s the typical list you really should go through. Where does it come from? Is it safe? Is it studied? Ideally, it’s a US source, grown in the US, manufactured in the US, processed in the US, in GMP facilities, FDA registered facilities. Is there technology around this peptide that gives me the sense that the brand can be trusted, that it’s authentic, and that it has the pedigree and the prominence to really deal with peptides?

Peptides are so fragile. This is not the same as putting vitamin C in a fizzy tab and calling it a day. This is not a commodity product at all. This is a very high touch product, high touch ingredients that make high touch products. As a consumer, you really have to ask these questions to make sure that you get what you pay for: high efficacy, safe, technologically advanced peptides that will do the job that they are promising to do.

Edited for length and clarity from a recorded conversation with Will West and Ulli Lindauer.