Most writing about peptides is published once and never revisited, which is how a field ends up full of confident claims that stopped being true years ago. A compound described as “the most advanced in development” keeps that description long after something else has overtaken it.
This page records movement in both directions. Trials that missed their endpoints, programmes that stopped, and decisions that slipped are as newsworthy here as approvals — a record that only reports good news is marketing with a date on it. Where an update supersedes something written in a guide, we say so and correct the guide.
Editorial revision record
These entries record changes to our explanations and presentation, separately from new scientific findings.
27 September 2026 · Certificate-reading guide
Made the pending technical-review status visible across the guide, added source links beside the purity/content explanation, and replaced reading map v1.0 with v1.1 carrying its own references and review notice. Clarified that a name alone does not establish identity and that checking document provenance does not establish supplied contents. This was an editorial revision, not completed scientific review.
Read the guide and revision noteHow we describe evidence
August 2026
4 updatesThe first edition of this record. Most of the movement over the past few months has been in the metabolic category, where several large trials reported and one regulatory submission is now under review. Two entries below correct claims that were accurate when written and are no longer current.
Three further Phase 3 trials reported, and a filing date named
TRIUMPH-1 reported in May 2026: across 2,339 participants at 80 weeks, mean body-weight reduction was 19.0% at 4 mg, 25.9% at 9 mg and 28.3% at 12 mg, with all doses meeting primary and key secondary endpoints. TRIUMPH-2 and TRIUMPH-3 reported in July 2026, with participants in TRIUMPH-3 — who had severe obesity and established cardiovascular disease — losing up to 22.6% of body weight at 80 weeks. Eli Lilly has said it intends to file a Biologics License Application with the FDA in the first quarter of 2027.
What it means
Our guide previously cited TRIUMPH-4 (December 2025) as the most recent readout. That is no longer the latest data, and the guide has been updated. Retatrutide remains unapproved everywhere — a filing is an application, not a decision.
CagriSema under FDA review; decision expected late 2026
Novo Nordisk submitted a New Drug Application for CagriSema — a fixed-dose combination of cagrilintide 2.4 mg and semaglutide 2.4 mg — on 18 December 2025, based on the REDEFINE-1 and REDEFINE-2 trials. The application is under review, with a decision anticipated in late 2026. As of this edition no approval has been granted.
What it means
Worth watching because it would be the first approved combination of a GLP-1 and an amylin analogue. It also means cagrilintide is likely to reach approval as half of a combination rather than on its own.
Approved by the FDA as Forzinity for Barth syndrome
The FDA granted accelerated approval to elamipretide (Forzinity) in September 2025, to improve muscle strength in adult and paediatric patients with Barth syndrome weighing at least 30 kilograms. Barth syndrome is an ultra-rare inherited disorder involving mitochondrial dysfunction. This is the first approved mitochondria-targeted therapeutic.
What it means
This moves SS-31 out of the unapproved category entirely, and our evidence marker on that guide now reflects it. The approval is narrow — one ultra-rare condition, accelerated pathway — and does not extend to any other use. A compound being approved for one indication says nothing about the others.
Reclassified in the United States; still not FDA-approved
Thymosin alpha-1 remains approved in more than 35 countries under the brand name Zadaxin, principally for chronic hepatitis B, and remains unapproved by the FDA. Following a reclassification in February 2026 it holds FDA 503A Category 2 status in the United States, meaning availability by prescription through licensed compounding pharmacies rather than as an approved medicine.
What it means
A useful reminder that "approved" is always a question of where. The same molecule can be a routine prescription medicine in one country and unapproved in another, and neither fact tells you anything about the other.