When the FDA panel that’s considering whether to recommend legal production of seven peptides meets starting Thursday, Shaun Noorian will be at its Maryland campus in person. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Noorian, the founder and CEO of Houston-based Empower Pharmacy, one of the nation’s largest compounding pharmacies, tells Forbes. “The who’s who of the peptide space will be there.”Hundreds of others are expected to jam into the room as well, including compounders, telehealth founders and longevity influencers, who are flying in for the event. “It will be a circus,” says Scott Brunner, CEO of the Alliance for Pharmacy Compounding, the industry’s trade group. “Everybody and their brother is coming.” While these peptides are currently not legal to produce for anything other than “research purposes,” that hasn’t stopped a booming gray market from exploiting that loophole. There’s little scientific data on their safety and efficacy, and the many sketchy sellers who distribute them operate with no oversight. Still, the illicit peptide market could be worth an estimated $3 billion. Silicon Valley bros, longevity medics and MAHA believers take them, while wellness influencers promote their “peptide stacks” online to speed recovery or improve sleep. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a self-described “big fan of peptides,” as he told podcaster Joe Rogan in February. While peptides are a broad category of amino acid-based drugs that include well-known legal ones (like insulin and the GLP-1 weight loss drugs), the buzz—and the FDA panel—is focused on a bunch of them known by a string of letters and numbers. These are injectables like BPC-157, which is extremely popular online for its reputed ability to heal tendons, ligaments and muscles, and TB-500, which is believed to reduce inflammation and improve wound healing. “This is akin to the supplement industry,” says Michelle Davey, founder and CEO of telehealth company Wheel. “I feel like it will be the Wild West for the first six months at least.”“It will be a circus. Everybody and their brother is coming.”