Guide
How to start a peptide program at your gym, med spa or wellness brand
Starting a peptide business without a medical license is possible, but not by selling peptides. BPC-157, CJC-1295 and semaglutide are prescription-only, and selling research-use vials to people is what the FDA keeps sending warning letters about, most recently in August 2026. What a gym, coach, med spa or wellness brand can do is offer a peptide program under its own name, with a physician-owned medical practice doing the prescribing and a licensed pharmacy filling the prescription. This guide covers that structure, the six steps, what it costs, a launch checklist and the mistakes that end businesses.
Already licensed?
Already have a prescriber? Read this first.
This guide is written for operators who cannot prescribe. If you are a physician, a nurse practitioner or a practice with its own prescriber, the structure is different: you keep the clinical layer, and what you need is protocols, a pharmacy connection and software, not a practice.
You cannot prescribe
Gym, coach, med spa without a medical director, wellness brand
Keep reading. The rest of this page is the legal structure, the six steps, the checklist and the mistakes for your situation.
Go to the six stepsYou can prescribe
Physician, nurse practitioner, or a practice with its own clinician
Tell us about your practice and we reply with the licensed-practice setup, which differs on who prescribes, who bills the patient and what the platform supplies.
Tell us about your practiceThe legal line
Can you sell peptides without a license?
No, and the enforcement is no longer theoretical. The numbers below are why a peptide business in 2026 has to be a medical program, not a product line.
Aug 2026
Latest round of FDA warning letters to sellers marketing "research use only" peptides for human use.
FDA warning letter, August 24, 2026$328M
Peptide and hormone ingredients imported from China in the first nine months of 2025, double the year before.
US customs data via NYT, Reason5,000
Peptide shipments seized at one US port in four months, mis-manifested inside master cartons.
CBP Cincinnati, March 20267.7% to 14%
Actual semaglutide content in no-prescription vials sold online as 99% pure, with endotoxin in every sample.
JMIR, 20243
Major research-peptide vendors that closed or pleaded guilty between December 2025 and March 2026.
ChemVerify, June 2026 (trade-reported)12
Peptides, including BPC-157, removed from the FDA's Category 2 list in April 2026. The change ends a safety flag; it does not make them approved.
BSCG, 2026An FDA advisory committee voted in July 2026 to back six peptides for pharmacy compounding, BPC-157 among them (AJMC). That vote is advisory and it makes the legal route more attractive, not the illegal one less illegal.
The structure
What does a legal peptide business look like for a non-prescriber?
Three layers with three owners. You own the commercial layer. A licensed practice owns the clinical layer. A licensed pharmacy owns the medication. Your revenue is a program fee for the non-clinical work you do, never a spread on a prescription.
Gym Lawyers PLLC lays out the operator-side exposures and names referral to a licensed provider as the safe path, subject to anti-kickback and corporate practice of medicine rules (Two-Brain Business, April 2026).
You: the commercial layer
Brand, storefront, marketing, the client relationship, customer service and the program price.
The practice: the clinical layer
Health screening review, prescribing, refills and every medical question, by a clinician licensed in the client's state.
The pharmacy: the medication
A licensed 503A compounds under the practice's prescription and ships direct to the client. You never buy, hold or resell a drug.
The platform: the plumbing
ConduitMD supplies the branded storefront, screening, portal, provider network, pharmacy connection and support, for two flat fees.
The full description of the platform side is on the white-label peptide program page.
Six steps
How do you start a peptide program, step by step?
In order, with the decision each step forces. Done through a platform, steps 2 to 5 take fourteen days from signing.
- 1
Choose the structure: build a clinic or partner with one
Building your own means a physician-owned professional entity in each state, a medical director, malpractice, a compounding pharmacy contract, prescribers and software. It is six to twelve months of work and $105,000 to $561,000 before the first client (the line items are on the cost page). Partnering means a licensed practice and pharmacy already exist and you own the brand, the audience and the price.
- 2
Pick two or three programs, not a formulary
Nobody buys a list of 71 products. They buy Recovery, Sleep or Skin. ConduitMD's 11 designed programs each carry a course length, screening gates and an estimated retail range, and most partners launch with two or three that fit their audience.
- 3
Set your price against your landed cost
Your landed cost per fill is a flat provider fee plus medication and shipping at the pharmacy's price. Estimated retail runs from $149 to $449 a month depending on the program. What you charge above landed cost is your margin, and it is a program fee, never a share of the prescription.
- 4
Confirm the states your clients live in
A prescription needs two licenses in the client's state: the prescriber's and the pharmacy's. 28 states plus DC are live today. Get the list in writing before you sell to anyone.
- 5
Put the storefront under your brand
Your logo, colors, program names and prices on a subdomain of your own site, with the screening, portal and every email in your brand. The licensed practice is named where the law requires: the consent, the clinician's signature and a one-line disclosure.
- 6
Train your staff on what they can and cannot say
Medical questions go to the clinician through the portal, every time. Your team can describe the program, the price and the process. They never recommend a dose, discuss a condition or promise a result.
What it costs
How much does it cost to start a peptide clinic?
$105,000 to $561,000 in year one before the first client, and 6 to 12 months of calendar time, if you own every layer. Ten line items, each with a sourced range, against what the same line costs when the practice, the pharmacies and the software already exist.
- $105k
- Own it, low case
- $561k
- Own it, high case
- 6 to 12 months
- Own it, to first client
- $24k/year
- ConduitMD, live in 14 days from signing
| Line item | Own it, year one | With ConduitMD |
|---|---|---|
| $5,000 to $35,000 | Mostly included | |
| $18,000 to $60,000 | Included | |
| $9,000 to $43,000 | Included | |
| $9,000 to $181,000 | Included | |
| $2,000 to $6,000 | Included | |
| $40,000 to $150,000 | Included | |
| $1,600 to $3,600 | Included | |
| $6,000 to $26,000 | Included | |
| $10,000 to $40,000 | Included | |
| $4,300 to $16,000 | Mostly included | |
| Year-one total before the first client | $105,000 to $561,000 | $24,000 in fees One-time setup, quoted on your call, then $2,000/mo plus $29 per visit. Medication and shipping at what the pharmacy charges. You still pay $4,300 to $11,100 for your own counsel review and liability cover. |
| Time to first client | 6 to 12 months | 14 days from signing |
Launch checklist
The peptide program launch checklist
Eighteen items in four phases: before you sell, structure and paper, launch, and every order. It is the list we walk every new partner through, whether or not they launch with us.
Programs
Which peptide programs can a non-prescriber offer?
Any of these, under your brand, once a licensed clinician has screened the client. Estimated retail is the low end of the market; you set the actual price.
| Program | For | Estimated retail per month |
|---|---|---|
| Recovery | Clients who train hard and stopped bouncing back, or have a nagging soft-tissue complaint. | $219 to $319 |
| Sleep | The client who sleeps eight hours and still wakes up tired. | $199 to $299 |
| Focus | The founder, the exec, the person who says they have brain fog. | $369 to $469 |
| Longevity | Healthy-aging clients and the longevity-curious. The highest-value segment in wellness. | $299 to $399 |
| Weight Support | Clients on a weight-loss medication who are worried about losing muscle with the fat. | $299 to $399 |
| Skin | Clients who will not do needles. Nothing in this program is injected. | $329 to $449 |
| Transformation | Clients who train consistently and want fat down and lean mass up, without a GLP-1. | $319 to $419 |
| Drive | Low libido and arousal complaints, in both men and women. | $299 to $399 |
| Immune | Frequent illness, post-viral fatigue, high-stress and high-travel clients. | $219 to $319 |
| Gut | Functional-medicine and integrative audiences. Entirely oral. | $259 to $359 |
| Nerve | Neuropathic complaints and chronic pain, where nerve and soft tissue overlap. | $199 to $299 |
Your part
What does the operator still carry?
Three things. None of them is medical, and all of them are written into the agreement before launch.
What your staff say
Medical questions go to the provider, always. We give your team the ten lines they can say and the five they cannot.
How you are paid
A flat fee for scheduling, records gathering and payment coordination. Never per patient, never a percentage. That is what keeps it clean in the strict states.
Whose paper it is on
We carry clinical liability and malpractice. You are never asked to defend the practice. Counsel reads the agreement before partner one.
Mistakes
What gets peptide businesses shut down?
Six patterns, all avoidable, all common in the first year.
Buying research-use vials and giving them to clients
This is the practice behind the FDA's warning letters to research-peptide sellers, most recently in August 2026, and the vendor shutdowns. It is illegal, the purity data is dismal, and it exposes you personally.
Paying or being paid per patient
A fee that rises with each referral reads as a kickback in strict states. Flat fees for non-clinical work are the defensible construction.
Calling any of it FDA approved
Compounded peptides are prepared by a licensed pharmacy under a prescription. They are not FDA-approved drugs and no honest program says otherwise.
Running injections in-house without a medical director
Anything your staff physically do to a client on your premises carries a facility-level medical director requirement in most states. A telehealth practice's medical director does not cover it. See the medical director guide below.
Hiring one nurse practitioner and calling it a clinic
Prescribers need licensure in every client state, collaborating physicians in reduced-practice states, malpractice, and a professional entity that survives corporate practice of medicine rules. One hire solves none of that.
Building a website before confirming pharmacy coverage
Prescriber licensure is rarely the limit. Pharmacy licensure is. A "national" launch on one pharmacy reaches about 65% of the country.
The most common follow-up question has its own page: do you need a medical director to offer peptides?
Start the legal version this month.
A twenty-minute call, then a brand kit, then a storefront on your domain. One setup fee, two flat fees, no contract, no percentage of anything. Live fourteen days after signing.
Frequently asked
Starting a peptide program or peptide business: questions
Can I sell peptides without a license?
No. Peptides like BPC-157, CJC-1295 and semaglutide are prescription-only, and selling vials labeled for research use to people for injection is the practice the FDA has sent warning letters about, most recently in August 2026. What a non-prescriber can do is offer a peptide program that a licensed clinician prescribes and a licensed pharmacy fills.
How much does it cost to start a peptide business?
Building your own clinic runs about $105,000 to $561,000 in the first year before the first client: a professional entity and MSO ($5,000 to $35,000), a medical director ($18,000 to $60,000), protocols ($9,000 to $43,000), a nurse practitioner ($9,000 on a 1099 in three states to $181,000 salaried in ten), pharmacy onboarding, a platform build ($40,000 to $150,000), an EHR, safety screening, API integrations ($10,000 to $40,000) and HIPAA. Partnering with ConduitMD costs $2,000 a month for the platform and $29 per provider visit, with medication at pharmacy cost and a one-time setup quoted on your call. The line-by-line breakdown with sources is on the cost page.
How long does it take to launch?
On ConduitMD, fourteen days from signing: kickoff on day 0, a brand kit and program card by day 5, a storefront on your domain by day 12, and written state coverage and a staff briefing by day 14. Building a clinic yourself is measured in months.
Do I need a medical director?
Not for a telehealth peptide program run through a licensed practice; the practice supplies its own medical director, prescribers and collaborating physicians. You do need your own medical director for anything your staff physically do to a client on your premises, such as injections or IV therapy.
I already have a prescriber. Is this guide for me?
The structure on this page is for operators who cannot prescribe. A physician, nurse practitioner or practice with its own clinician keeps the clinical layer and needs protocols, a pharmacy connection and software rather than a practice. Tell us about your practice through the apply form and we reply with the licensed-practice setup.
Can a gym, personal trainer or coach do this?
Yes. The operator brings the audience and the brand; the practice handles screening, prescribing and refills; the pharmacy ships to the client. Your staff never give medical advice, and every medical question goes to the clinician through the portal.
What can I charge?
You set the program price. Estimated retail for designed programs runs from $149 a month for a topical Skin program to $449 for Longevity or Transformation. Your landed cost is the flat provider fee plus medication and shipping at pharmacy cost, and everything above it is yours.
Which peptides are legal to include?
Only what a licensed 503A pharmacy can compound under a prescription. Twelve peptides including BPC-157 came off the FDA's Category 2 list in April 2026, and an FDA advisory committee backed six of them for compounding in July 2026, but no peptide program should ever be described as FDA approved. No controlled substances are offered.
Nothing on this page is legal advice. Compounded peptides are prepared by a licensed 503A pharmacy under a prescription and are not FDA-approved drugs. ConduitMD provides software and management services to an independent medical practice and its partners; it does not prescribe or dispense. State rules vary and every partner structure is reviewed by counsel before launch.