Between January and June 2026, The Peptide Institute purchased 20 peptide products from 12 companies using anonymous retail orders shipped to unaffiliated addresses. Every sample was logged, photographed, and sent under chain-of-custody documentation to one of three independent analytical laboratories.
Each laboratory performed reversed-phase HPLC purity analysis and mass-spectrometry identity confirmation. Where products carried a quantity claim, quantitative amino acid analysis measured actual content against the label.
The results describe an industry with a widening quality gap. The top tier of companies — those that publish batch documentation and disclose manufacturing partners — produced samples averaging 98.7% purity with content within 2% of label. The bottom tier produced the two outright failures in this cycle.
The most consequential finding involved Cascade Research Group. A product labeled BPC-157 10mg measured 61.0% purity with three major unidentified impurity peaks. When the company disputed the result, we purchased a second sample from a different lot and sent it to a different laboratory. It measured 64.3%. Both reports are published in full in our testing database.
Quantity discrepancies formed a quieter pattern. Four samples measured more than 8% below label content while passing purity screens — a failure mode invisible to the standard COA a customer might request. PT-141 products were disproportionately represented, continuing a pattern we first flagged in 2025.
Our scoring system responds to these results automatically: testing outcomes feed the Testing & Quality dimension, which carries the largest weight in the Index Score. Cascade Research Group’s score dropped from 58 to 41 and the company is now flagged under active review.
