There is no GLP-4. As of 23 September 2026, no receptor by that name exists, and no drug by that name has been approved or tested anywhere.
The texts going out this week advertise a 40 mg injectable vial, marked research use only. The claim is that it beat semaglutide's 68-week trial in 13 weeks.1
The name belongs to an experimental compound its own developer describes as an oral capsule. The weight-loss claim does not survive that developer's own figures.2
It is also not the only thing being called GLP-4. Search the term and you will find at least three different substances under it, one of which is a mushroom peptide.
Is GLP-4 a real class of drug?
No. GLP-1 and GLP-2 are real peptides your gut makes from the same precursor protein, and GLP-1 is the target of semaglutide and tirzepatide. The numbering stops there. Nothing in the body is called GLP-3 or GLP-4.
In the grey market the numbers mean something else: how many receptors a compound is claimed to hit. Retatrutide acts at three, so it gets called GLP-3. A compound claimed to act at four becomes GLP-4.
The sellers use the same shorthand on their own shelves. Sellers use the same shorthand on their own shelves, listing retatrutide as GLP-3 and running the pattern across their catalogues with a letter for the compound. The names are packaging, chosen for the shelf and not the chemistry.
Three different things are called GLP-4
An experimental obesity compound. NA-931, or Bioglutide. This is what the launch texts are selling.
A blend of other peptides. At least two sellers list a product called GLP-4 Metatrutide. One describes it as a custom in-house formula of 10 mg retatrutide and 2 mg PEG-MGF, a growth factor fragment sold for muscle repair.3 Same name, completely different contents, and nothing in it is a quadruple agonist.
A published mushroom peptide. In the scientific literature, GLP4 is a five-amino-acid peptide isolated from the mycelium of Ganoderma lingzhi. It has been studied for antioxidant activity and for anti-inflammatory effects through a protein called TBK1.4 It has nothing to do with weight loss, and it is the only GLP4 in that literature with published peer-reviewed data behind it.
The name on its own tells you nothing about what is in the vial, and the search results do not sort the three apart.
What is Bioglutide (NA-931)?
NA-931, also called Bioglutide, an experimental compound from Biomed Industries of San Jose. The company describes it as a first-in-class quadruple receptor agonist acting at the IGF-1, GLP-1, GIP and glucagon receptors.2
Biomed calls NA-931 an orally active small molecule, and its trials give it as a once-daily capsule.25 Neither of those descriptions fits an injectable peptide vial.
The IGF-1 part of the claim matters too. IGF-1 is the growth factor behind most of the cancer questions people ask about growth hormone peptides. Our guide on peptides and cancer covers what is and is not known there. A compound marketed as activating that receptor needs more than a press release behind it.
What the advert offers, then, is a 40 mg injectable of something the developer has never described making, in a form nobody has tested, under a nickname the developer does not use.
Does GLP-4 really beat semaglutide?
Not by the developer's own numbers.
Biomed's phase 2 was a 13-week trial, and the company reported mean weight loss of up to 13.8% at the highest daily dose, or 11.9% after subtracting placebo.2 Semaglutide's STEP 1 trial reported 14.9% at 68 weeks.6
The advert's headline claim, greater weight loss in 13 weeks than semaglutide managed in 68, is contradicted by the number the company itself published. An earlier company submission put the figure at 14.8%, still below the semaglutide result.7
Comparing the two directly is shaky anyway. Different trials, different populations, different lengths. The comparison that would settle it is a head-to-head study, and none has been run.
A 13-week figure and a 68-week figure describe different things. The advert never says what semaglutide had achieved at 13 weeks, and that comparison is the one that would have meant something.
Does GLP-4 preserve muscle?
Nothing published shows that it does. The advert's other line is "non muscle wasting, unlike GLP-1's", and that claim comes from the same place as the weight-loss one.
The title of the company's conference presentation is that NA-931 reduces body weight without muscle loss, and the press releases repeat it.82 No body-composition data supporting it has been published, and the comparison group is not a trial arm but GLP-1 drugs in general.
Lean tissue loss on the approved drugs is real and measured, running at 30 to 40% of total weight lost in the published trials. Our guide on what happens after significant weight loss covers it. A compound that avoided it would matter enormously, so the claim needs data behind it and not a slide title.
Has NA-931 been tested in people?
By its developer's account, yes: three registered trials and a conference presentation, and nothing peer-reviewed.
ClinicalTrials.gov carries a phase 1 study of 74 participants taking NA-931 capsules, a 13-week phase 2 in adults with obesity, and phase 3 trials of NA-931 alone and alongside semaglutide or tirzepatide.59 The phase 2 results were presented by the company's chief executive at the European diabetes meeting in September 2025.8
What is missing is the publication. Biomed's own page on the compound lists the presentation and then says publication is pending.10 No peer-reviewed report of the phase 2 appears in a literature search.
Two details in the registry entries stand out. The listed trial sites are named Biomed Research Unit and numbered, instead of being hospitals or universities with their own names.9 The phase 2 record answers no to the question of whether the study involves an FDA-regulated drug.5
Is Bioglutide a scam?
Publicly, yes, and in detail. Since 2025, an investigation has argued that NA-931 does not exist and that the company's published data were fabricated.11 Several writers in the peptide trade have since followed it with analytical work of their own, covered in the next section.
The investigation lays out dated archives, press releases and submissions, and it is specific about what it claims and why. It was also written by someone who sells peptides, so the author is an interested party.
Biomed's position sits in its own press releases, describing completed phase 1 and phase 2 trials, a conference presentation and phase 3 plans.28 Both sets of claims are public. Neither has been tested in court or by a regulator that has published a finding.
For a buyer, the argument matters less than the arithmetic. Even taking the company entirely at its word, what it describes is an oral capsule of a small molecule, and what arrived in the text message is an injectable vial labelled peptide.
How is this different from other research peptides?
Usually the argument is about quality. Here it is about existence. Most of what the research peptide market sells is a real pharmaceutical compound made by someone else. Retatrutide belongs to Eli Lilly and has published phase 3 data. Cagrilintide belongs to Novo Nordisk. You can argue about purity, dosing and legality, and the underlying molecule is not in doubt.
GLP-4 is a different situation. The argument is over whether the compound behind the name has ever been made and tested as described.
What did lab testing find in vials sold as NA-931?
Three different substances, none of them a quadruple agonist. Material sold under the name has been independently analysed more than once, by different people, and the answers came back different every time.
Kimera Chems bought raw material being sold as NA-931 by a Chinese supplier and sent it to NuMega Resonance Labs for proton NMR and mass spectrometry. The mass came back at about 154 daltons and the structural fingerprint matched cyclo(Pro-Gly), also called Traneurocin, also called NA-831.1213 Semaglutide weighs about 4,100 daltons and retatrutide about 4,700. A 154 dalton molecule is not a peptide receptor agonist of any kind, and NA-831 is a different compound from the same company, one digit apart in the name.
Earlier, a product sold as Bioglutide by another vendor was tested at Janoshik and came back as a blend of retatrutide and cagrilintide.1213 A third sample submitted as Bioglutide was identified as [D-Lys3]-GHRP-6, a different peptide again.14
Factory certificates deepen the problem instead of settling it. One for "Bioglutide; NA-931" gives the molecular formula and mass of the small cyclic dipeptide. Another names the product and then lists CAS number and structure as not applicable, while reporting 99.90% purity.14 Purity of what is the question a certificate like that cannot answer.
None of this testing was done on the vial in the advert, and nobody outside the seller knows what is in that one. What it does establish is that the name has already covered at least three different substances in other people's vials.
It is new enough that it had not reached the shelves we track. At the last price snapshot, taken in late August and early September across 5,720 listings, nothing was sold under this name by any vendor in our tracker.15 That will change, and the price pages will show it when it does.
Does "research use only" protect a seller?
No, and that is settled law rather than opinion. Under the regulation that defines intended use, what a product is intended for is judged by the objective intent of whoever is responsible for the labelling, and that intent can be shown by labelling claims, advertising or written statements.16 A vial marked research use only, advertised with weight-loss percentages, is a drug by that test.
This is the reasoning the FDA has applied repeatedly to research peptide sellers, including in the round of warning letters covered in our earlier piece on how little it took. Those letters name the products, quote the sellers' own marketing back at them, and treat bacteriostatic water sold in a kit with a syringe as a drug as well.
One consequence shows up in how this marketing now reaches people. Claims made in an SMS blast, or inside a shop that requires a login, are harder for a regulator reviewing a public website to see than claims sitting on an open product page.
What to watch next
A peer-reviewed publication of the phase 2, with body composition data, would move NA-931 from press release to evidence. Phase 3 results would matter more, if they arrive.
One more thing has already happened, without waiting for any of those. The name has spread beyond the seller's own channels, and the route it took is the part to look at.
Search GLP-4 and among the results are two marketing pages hosted on the website of the Town of Stoneville, North Carolina, a municipality of about 1,300 people in Rockingham County. One was indexed on 8 September, the other within the last day.1718 Pages like that are placed on unrelated trusted domains to borrow their standing in search, a practice search engines call site reputation abuse. In Google's results, one of the two pages displays under the name of a Nigerian government ministry instead of the town's. The listing is not what it appears to be from either end.17
Google's own summary at the top of those results now describes GLP-4 as an informal nickname and names Bioglutide.17 The label has become established enough to summarise. None of that is a fact about the compound.
What to do when a text like this arrives
Search the name on ClinicalTrials.gov. Not the marketing name, the compound name. If the only hits are for a different form of the drug, that difference is the story.
Check the claim against the source. Company press releases are findable and usually give the actual figure. In this case the developer's own number is lower than the advert's implied one.
Look at the route. A compound developed as an oral capsule does not become an injectable by being put in a vial, and nobody has published what injecting it does.
Search the seller's name plus "warning letter". The FDA's warning letter database is public, searchable by company, and free.
Treat scarcity claims as marketing. A unit count and a launch time are sales technique, and neither is a supply constraint you can check.
Common questions
Is GLP-4 a real peptide?
No. There is no GLP-4 receptor and no drug approved or in trials under that name. It is a marketing label for a compound claimed to act at four receptors.
What compound is being sold as GLP-4?
NA-931, also called Bioglutide, from Biomed Industries. Its developer describes it as an orally active small molecule taken as a daily capsule, not as an injectable peptide.
Is GLP-4 the same as retatrutide?
Sometimes, depending on who is selling it. At least two sellers list a "GLP-4 Metatrutide" that they describe as retatrutide combined with PEG-MGF. That is a blend of two known compounds, not a four-receptor drug.
Is GLP-4 stronger than retatrutide or semaglutide?
Nothing published supports that. The developer's phase 2 reported up to 13.8% weight loss over 13 weeks, and semaglutide's STEP 1 trial reported 14.9% over 68 weeks. No head-to-head trial exists.
Has NA-931 been approved anywhere?
No. It has registered trials and a conference presentation, and no approval in any country.
Has the NA-931 data been published?
Not as a peer-reviewed paper that we could find. The company's own page describes the phase 2 presentation and says publication is pending.
Why do sellers call things GLP-3 and GLP-4?
The numbers count claimed receptor targets, not drug generations. Retatrutide acts at three receptors and gets called GLP-3, so a four-receptor claim becomes GLP-4. Your body has GLP-1 and GLP-2 and nothing further.
What is GLP-4 claimed to do?
The marketing claims greater weight loss than semaglutide, no muscle loss, lower doses and lower cost. The weight-loss claim is contradicted by the developer's own reported figure, and the muscle claim has no published body-composition data behind it.
Is GLP-4 safe?
Nothing published answers that. There is no approved product, no completed safety review by any regulator, and material sold under the name has tested as at least three different substances, so safety data for one of them would not describe the others.
Is there a GLP-4 dose?
No published one. The developer's trials used a daily oral capsule, and no human data exists for an injected version. Our dosage chart records which compounds have a dose from a label or a study and which do not.
Is there a GLP-5?
Not yet, and the pattern suggests the number will keep climbing. It counts claimed receptor targets rather than drug generations, so a five-target claim would produce the name regardless of whether the compound exists.
Does "research use only" make any of this legal?
No. Intended use is judged by objective intent, which can be shown by advertising and by claims, so a vial advertised with weight-loss percentages is a drug under the regulation whatever the label says.
I already ordered. What now?
How you paid decides most of it, and the dispute deadlines are shorter than people assume. Our guide on what to do when a vendor vanishes covers the card, bank and push-payment routes and the clocks on each.
I already injected it. What should I do?
Keep the vial, the label and the order record, because they are the only description of what you took. Tell a clinician what it was sold as and what the label said, rather than what the marketing claimed. Our guide on injection site reactions covers what a normal reaction looks like and which signs mean get seen.
What is actually in the vial?
For this seller's vial, nobody outside the company knows. Material sold as NA-931 elsewhere has been tested and came back as a 154 dalton cyclic dipeptide in one case, a blend of retatrutide and cagrilintide in another, and a GHRP-6 analogue in a third. The only way to know is independent testing of that lot.
Sources
- SMS marketing message and product graphic from a US research peptide seller, received 22 September 2026. *Reader-supplied screenshot. Advertises "GLP-4 PEPTIDE", a 40 mg vial marked research use only, with the claims "13 week study performed", "greater weight loss over 13 weeks than 68 week study using semaglutide", "most powerful weight loss GLP ever" and "non muscle wasting, unlike GLP-1's", a 500-unit launch and a link to the seller's site.* ↩
- Biomed Industries. Press release, "Biomed Industries Advances NA-931 Into Two Global Phase 3 Trials Alone and with Semaglutide and Tirzepatide for Obesity". [firstwordpharma.com](https://firstwordpharma.com/story/7047145). *Company announcement, read via search result excerpt of the release. Describes NA-931 as "the first-in-class, orally active, small-molecule quadruple receptor agonist that simultaneously targets IGF-1, GLP-1, GIP, and glucagon receptors", and reports that the 13-week phase 2 showed dose-dependent weight reduction "up to 13.8% at 150 mg daily dosage, or 11.9%" against placebo. Company statements about its own unapproved product, cited as such.* ↩
- Disguised Alpha, "GLP-4 Metatrutide", and a second listing of the same name at fortolabs.co. *Seen in the Google results capture above, not on the product pages themselves, which were not opened. The Disguised Alpha description reads "a custom Disguised Alpha research formula containing 10MG GLP3-Reta and 2MG PEG-MGF". Open both product pages and screenshot them before publishing, since this is the evidence that the same name covers different contents.* ↩
- Huang P, et al. "GLP4, a peptide from Ganoderma lingzhi directly targeting TBK1 to exert anti-inflammatory activity", Food Science and Human Wellness. [sciopen.com](https://www.sciopen.com/article/10.26599/FSHW.2025.9250572). *Peer-reviewed research article, abstract read via search results. GLP4 is the pentapeptide Gln-Arg-Val-Cys-Glu from Ganoderma lingzhi mycelium; it reduced COX-2, iNOS, TNF-alpha, IL-1beta and IL-6 expression in a cell model and bound TBK1. An earlier paper in Food and Function (2022) describes the same peptide's antioxidant activity. Neither has any connection to weight loss.* ↩
- ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT06564753, "Phase 2 Trials of NA-931 to Study Subjects Who Are Obese With at Least One Weight-related Comorbid Condition". [clinicaltrials.gov](https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06564753). *Trial registry record, read via search result excerpt. A 13-week randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled parallel-arm study in adults with obesity or overweight with a comorbidity; sponsor Biomed Industries; the record answers "No" to FDA Regulated Drug.* ↩
- Wilding JPH, et al. Once-weekly semaglutide in adults with overweight or obesity. *New England Journal of Medicine*, 2021. [doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2032183](https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2032183). *Peer-reviewed phase 3 trial, abstract read via search results and corroborated by the American College of Cardiology trial summary. 1,961 adults; mean change in body weight from baseline to week 68 was 14.9% with semaglutide 2.4 mg against 2.4% with placebo.* ↩
- Aus Aminos. "The Bioglutide Scam: Lies and Fraud at Biomed Industries". [ausaminos.com](https://ausaminos.com/blog/the-bioglutide-scam-lies-and-fraud-at-biomed-industries/). *Cited here only for its quotation of an earlier Biomed submission reporting 14.8% mean weight loss at 13 weeks. See the final note for the standing of this source.* ↩
- Biomed Industries. Press release, "Biomed Industries, Inc. Unveils Phase 2 Success of NA-931: an Oral Quadruple Receptor Agonist for Obesity at EASD 2025". [einpresswire.com](https://www.einpresswire.com/article/853786369/biomed-industries-inc-unveils-phase-2-success-of-na-931-an-oral-quadruple-receptor-agonist-for-obesity-at-easd-2025). *Company announcement on a paid wire service, read via search result excerpt. Records that the company's chief executive presented the phase 2 results at the EASD annual meeting in Vienna in September 2025.* ↩
- ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT06615700 (phase 1, 74 participants, NA-931 capsule) and NCT06732245 ("Safety and Efficacy of NA-931 and Tirzepatide in Adults Who Are Overweight or Obese"). [clinicaltrials.gov](https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06615700). *Registry records, read via search result excerpts. The phase 1 intervention is described as a capsule and as "a quadruple receptor agonist for weight loss". The later record lists trial sites in the United States, Australia and New Zealand, each named "Biomed Research Unit" with a number, and gives the company's chief executive as study chair.* ↩
- Biomed Industries. NA-931 product page. [biomedind.com](https://www.biomedind.com/NA-931.html). *Company website, read via search result excerpt. Lists the EASD presentation and states "Publication is pending".* ↩
- Aus Aminos. "The Bioglutide Scam: Lies and Fraud at Biomed Industries". [ausaminos.com](https://ausaminos.com/blog/the-bioglutide-scam-lies-and-fraud-at-biomed-industries/). *A long, dated investigation arguing that NA-931 does not exist and that the company's data were fabricated, assembled from archived press releases and submissions. The author sells peptides, so this is an interested party rather than a neutral one, and the allegations have not been tested by a court or published regulatory finding. Read via search result excerpt; read the whole piece before relying on any part of it.* ↩
- Krysia. "Sold as Bioglutide, Tested as NA-831" and "Inside the Bioglutide Support Group". [krysia0430.substack.com](https://krysia0430.substack.com/p/sold-as-bioglutide-tested-as-na-831). *Independent writer in the peptide trade, read via search result excerpts. Reports that Kimera Chems acquired raw material sold as NA-931 from a Chinese API supplier and submitted it to NuMega Resonance Labs; proton NMR in DMSO-d6 and ESI mass spectrometry identified it as cyclo(L-prolyl-glycine), formula C7H10N2O2, mass 154.17, that is NA-831 or Traneurocin. Also reports the earlier Janoshik result on a Bioglutide product sold by Limitless. Not peer-reviewed and not a disinterested source; the underlying lab reports should be requested before relying on the detail.* ↩
- Derek Pruski. "Following Up on the Bioglutide Sample Janoshik Tested". [derekpruski.substack.com](https://derekpruski.substack.com/p/following-up-on-the-bioglutide-sample). *Second independent account of the same analytical work, read via search result excerpt. Records the parent mass of about 154 daltons against the 4,000 to 5,000 expected for a peptide agonist, the NMR match to cyclo(Pro-Gly), and the absence of any published sequence, confirmed structure or reference standard for Bioglutide. Corroborates note 12 without being the same author.* ↩
- Krysia. "Bioglutide: What Happens When a Fake Drug Reaches the Supply Chain?". [krysia0430.substack.com](https://krysia0430.substack.com/p/what-happens-when-a-fake-drug-reaches). *Same writer, later piece, read via search result excerpt. Describes a factory certificate for "Bioglutide; NA-931" giving formula C7H10N2O2 and expected mass 154.2, a second certificate listing CAS and structure as not applicable while reporting 99.90% purity, and a sample submitted as Bioglutide identified as [D-Lys3]-GHRP-6. Also states that the Bioglutide patent application describes NA-931 as cyclic prolyl glycine, which is worth checking against the application itself before publishing.* ↩
- Peptide Decoding vendor price data. [peptidedecoding.com/prices](https://peptidedecoding.com/prices). *The site's own tracker, 5,720 listings with checks dated 22 August to 6 September 2026. No listing under this name, and no compound record for it in the site's own database of 232 compounds. Re-run both checks on the day of publication, since a launch of this kind reaches other sellers quickly.* ↩
- 21 CFR 201.128, "Meaning of intended uses". [ecfr.gov](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-C/part-201/subpart-D/section-201.128). *The regulation itself, text read via search results from the eCFR and the Cornell LII copy. Intended use is the objective intent of whoever is responsible for the labelling, and may be shown by labelling claims, advertising matter, or written statements. This is the provision the FDA cites when it finds that research use only labelling does not control what a product is.* ↩
- Google results page for "glp-4", captured 23 September 2026. *Reader-supplied screenshot of the full results page, kept on file. Shows Google's AI summary describing GLP-4 as an informal nickname for quadruple-agonist compounds and naming Bioglutide; two stonevillenc.org pages, one dated 8 September 2026 and one indexed within the previous day, the second listed under the site name of a Nigerian government ministry; vendor listings for "GLP-4 Metatrutide"; and the Ganoderma and C. elegans results. A screenshot records what one person saw at one moment, so re-run the search before publishing and keep the new capture.* ↩
- "New GLP-4 Peptide" page on the Town of Stoneville, North Carolina website. [stonevillenc.org](https://www.stonevillenc.org/new-glp-4-peptide-blog/). *Reader-supplied link, checked 23 September 2026. The domain is the town's official site, a WordPress install carrying council meeting notices and department pages. The GLP-4 page returned only a loading shell to an automated fetch, so its text has not been read here; confirm the content in a browser, screenshot it, and record the date before citing it. Who placed the page, and whether the town is aware of it, is not established.* ↩