How long has peptide therapy been around?

Peptide therapy has been around for more than a century. In January 1922, doctors in Toronto gave the first insulin injection to a 14-year-old boy with type 1 diabetes, and insulin, a peptide hormone, became the first peptide medicine. In 1953 Vincent du Vigneaud synthesized oxytocin, the first peptide hormone made in a lab, work that earned him a Nobel Prize. In 1982 human insulin made with recombinant DNA became the first drug of its kind approved by the FDA. The GLP-1 era began in 2005 with exenatide, followed by semaglutide and tirzepatide. A 2021 review counted more than 80 peptide drugs on the market worldwide. What is new is the wave of unapproved peptides sold for wellness, which lack that track record.

The first insulin was extracted from animal pancreas, and the very first injection in January 1922 largely failed; a purified extract given later that month worked. Supply and purity stayed hard problems, and making peptides reliably took decades. Bruce Merrifield’s solid-phase method, published in 1963, let chemists build a peptide one amino acid at a time on a solid support, and it earned him the 1984 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Recombinant DNA later let bacteria make human insulin itself.

Many modern peptide drugs are engineered versions of natural signals. Semaglutide is a modified form of the gut hormone GLP-1, changed so that it lasts about a week in the body. Tesamorelin, approved in 2010, is an engineered version of the brain’s growth hormone releasing hormone.

The approved peptide drugs went through decades of chemistry and controlled trials. Much of what is sold online as peptide therapy did not. Many of those compounds were first described in animal research, and some have never completed a human trial.

Age alone says little either way. What matters is the evidence for the specific peptide and use. Our FDA-approved peptides list shows which ones have cleared that bar, and our evidence grades rate the rest.

Checked October 30, 2026. Labels, guidelines and coverage rules change, so confirm anything that affects your care with your clinician or pharmacist.

• The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1923: Frederick G. Banting and John Macleod, for the discovery of insulin.
• University of Toronto, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library: the first clinical trials of insulin (Leonard Thompson, January 1922).
• The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1955: Vincent du Vigneaud, for the first synthesis of a polypeptide hormone.
• The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1984: Bruce Merrifield, for methodology for chemical synthesis on a solid matrix.
• Drugs@FDA - HUMULIN (insulin human, recombinant DNA origin), approved October 28, 1982.
• Drugs@FDA - BYETTA (exenatide), NDA 021773, approved April 28, 2005.
• Muttenthaler M, et al. Trends in peptide drug discovery. Nat Rev Drug Discov. 2021;20:309-325.

More from the Peptide Therapy FAQ: Is peptide therapy FDA approved? · Can you take peptides orally? · Are peptides steroids? · How peptide therapy works · New FDA-approved peptides · Peptide drug classes

Educational information from LiveNow Longevity, not medical advice. It gives no doses and does not replace an evaluation by a licensed clinician who knows your history.