체중 감량 전쟁, 새로운 전선이 열렸다. 그리고 한 종목이 고지를 점령했다.

THE DAILY H.E.A.T. Torching Wall Street’s Obsolete Playbook. Delivered straight to your inbox 5 days a week. Subscribe Home Posts The Weight Loss War Just Got a New Front, and One Stock Has the High Ground. The Weight Loss War Just Got a New Front, and One Stock Has the High Ground. Apr 17, 2026 I’ve been a trader and investor for 44 years. I left Wall Street long ago—-once I understood that their obsolete advice is designed to profit them, not you. Today, my firm manages around $4 billion in ETFs, and I don’t answer to anybody. I tell the truth because trying to fool investors doesn’t help them, or me. In Daily H.E.A.T. , I show you how to Hedge against disaster, find your Edge, exploit Asymmetric opportunities, and ride major Themes before Wall Street catches on. Table of Contents H.E.A.T. News vs. Noise: What’s Moving Markets Today ETF News In Case You Missed It H.E.A.T. RFK Jr. just cracked open the $50 billion peptide black box. Wall Street is still treating it as a footnote. It isn't. THE GOSPEL WALL STREET BELIEVES The narrative is clean and consensus is locked in: Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk own the weight-loss drug category, full stop. Wegovy and Zepbound are GLP-1 injectable peptides that generate a combined $20+ billion in annual revenue and sport pricing power that would make a luxury goods house blush. The market cap premium baked into both companies reflects a multi-decade monopoly on what investors are calling the most commercially significant drug class since statins. Compounding pharmacies were a temporary nuisance during the shortage era — soon to be swept off the board by FDA enforcement actions. Peptides more broadly? A fringe biohacking curiosity sold in the gray market to fitness bros and longevity obsessives. Not investable. Certainly not a threat to Big Pharma. HERE'S WHAT JUST CRACKED THAT STORY On April 15, 2026, HHS Secretary RFK Jr. announced the federal government will loosen restrictions on 12 specific peptides that were locked down in 2023 over safety concerns. The FDA simultaneously scheduled two meetings this summer to determine whether seven peptides — including some already produced by compounding pharmacies — can be made formally available through vetted clinical channels. Hims & Hers stock ripped 13.7% on the news, then added another 5.5% at the next morning's open. Hims isn't an anomaly. It's a canary. The peptide market is not fringe. It is not a supplement. And it is no longer unregulated. What is happening right now is the formal legitimization of that gray-market ecosystem — and the companies with compounding infrastructure, clinical distribution rails, and a trusted consumer brand are about to inherit it. THE MECHANISM: WHY THIS ISN'T JUST AN HIMS TRADE Peptides are chains of amino acids that act as biological signaling molecules — think of them as the body's internal instruction set. They are not supplements in the traditional sense, and they are not FDA-approved drugs. That in-between status is precisely why the gray market thrived: no clean regulatory framework meant no institutional oversight, no insurance coverage, and no major pharmaceutical interest in disrupting their own premium pricing by endorsing alternatives. What does "loosen restrictions" actually mean in practice? Translation: the government is creating a regulated on-ramp. Who can make these compounds. Who can prescribe them. Under what clinical standards. Which channels can fulfill them. For the gray market, that is an extinction event. For the companies with licensed compounding infrastructure and prescription rails already built, it is a land grant. Here is the part the consensus misses: this is not about GLP-1 generics arriving overnight. GLP-1 branded compounding is still constrained by 503A/503B pharmacy rules, shortage-list dynamics, patent litigation, and payer reimbursement behavior. Those walls do not fall because peptides get a cleaner regulatory lane. What does change is the menu: a widening array of supervised, compounded, weight-loss-adjacent peptide protocols becomes available through clinical channels — creating price anchors, expanding treatment options, and pulling price-sensitive patients away from $1,350-per-month branded options. The pricing umbrella does not collapse. It leaks. Slowly, then all at once. Hims & Hers has already telegraphed this. In February 2026, management told investors it was planning "R&D efforts in the peptide space" and flagged it as a "future category." Two months later, the regulatory environment just moved toward them. The company already has the telehealth prescription infrastructure, the compounding pharmacy relationships, and the DTC brand trust to serve as the distribution layer for a newly legitimized category. Noom just moved too. The weight-loss app acquired a pharmacy that already manufactures peptides. This is not a coincidence. These companies are building the rails before the train arrives. PEPTIDE MARKET AT A GLANCE Compound Current Status Primary Use Regulatory Path BPC-157 Gray market / restricted Muscle & gut recovery Under FDA summer review GHK-Cu Gray market / cosmetic Skin health / anti-aging Under FDA summer review GLP-1 analogs FDA-approved (branded) Weight loss / T2D Compounding scrutiny ongoing Semaglutide (compound) Compounding gray zone Weight loss Shortage-era access expiring PT-141 (Bremelanotide) FDA-approved (limited) Sexual dysfunction Candidate for broadened access Thymosin Alpha-1 Restricted / import only Immune modulation Scheduled for FDA review   WHAT TO WATCH: THE CATALYST CALENDAR Summer 2026 — FDA Advisory Meetings (x2): The key signal is language. 'Supervised access pathway' = green light for vetted compounders. 'Additional restrictions pending safety review' = pause. Watch for committee composition and industry comment periods.   Next HIMS Earnings / Pipeline Update: Management telegraphed R&D efforts in peptides in February. Any product launch timeline, compounding partnership announcement, or updated subscriber guidance tied to peptide services is a material catalyst.   Noom: Watch for revenue disclosures tied to the pharmacy acquisition. The first quarter where peptide-derived revenue appears in their numbers will confirm whether the vertical integration thesis is executing.   LLY / NVO Gross Margin Trend: Not the top line — the margin. If branded GLP-1 gross margins compress ahead of any obvious cost driver, it is the first empirical signal that compounding alternatives are pulling pricing power.   Shortage List Status for Semaglutide: The FDA's ongoing determination of whether semaglutide remains on the shortage list is the single most important binary for the compounding channel. Watch monthly FDA CDER updates. SPOTLIGHT: THE CREDIBILITY GAP THESIS Kaufman Hall analysts, in a note distributed by William Blair in April 2026, identified what they called a "credibility gap" in the peptide market: patients increasingly trust telehealth startups and online pharmacies over traditional clinicians. That gap, they argue, cannot be closed by regulation alone.   That is both a warning and an investment thesis. The companies that close the credibility gap — by pairing legitimate clinical oversight with consumer-friendly distribution — will own the margin-rich middle ground between Big Pharma's branded pricing and the gray market's operational chaos.   Hims & Hers is explicitly building toward this. Its chief medical officer called the FDA's moves 'an important step toward moving these treatments out of the gray market and into more trusted channels overseen by vetted healthcare professionals.' That is not marketing language. That is a market positioning statement. THE STRUCTURAL THREAT TO LLY AND NVO THAT NOBODY IS PRICING IN Lilly and Novo have enjoyed an extraordinary pricing umbrella. Wegovy retails for approximately $1,350 per month in the U.S. without insurance. The clinical efficacy is real — but so is the elasticity problem. A large and growing body of research documents that semaglutide-class compounds can be compounded at a fraction of the branded price, and during the shortage period, the FDA effectively permitted this. That window is narrowing. The peptide deregulation opens a second front that is subtler but more durable: menu expansion. As compounding channels gain the legal authority to offer a broader array of supervised peptide protocols — appetite modulation, metabolic support, recovery — the total addressable patient population for branded GLP-1s does not disappear. It fractures at the edges. Price-sensitive patients migrate to supervised alternatives. Premium patients stay. The monopoly premium erodes by degree, not by collapse. Lilly and Novo are not standing still. Next-generation oral formulations, longer-acting molecules, and aggressive access programs are all in motion. Both companies have manufacturing scale as a structural moat — scale that no compounding pharmacy can replicate at the branded clinical-trial level. Their litigation and lobbying arms are fully engaged. But here is the honest read: companies that have spent decades building a drug class rarely model the scenario where a regulated gray market eats their pricing power from below. Wall Street hasn't modeled it either. WINNERS & LOSERS WINNERS LOSERS ✔  Hims & Hers (HIMS) — telehealth moat + compounding infrastructure positions it as the Amazon of peptide delivery. If you can't buy the compounder directly, you buy the rails: telehealth prescription + regulated fulfillment + monitoring. HIMS is the most liquid expression of all three. ✔  Noom — acquisition of peptide-capable pharmacy gives it vertical integration before the regulatory green light; a fast-follower with manufacturing capability is more defensible than one without it. ✔  Weight-loss-adjacent diagnostics (continuous glucose monitors, metabolic labs) — more patients on peptide protocols = more monitoring demand. Public proxies: Dexcom (DXCM), Abbott (ABT) on the device side; LabCorp (LH) and Quest (DGX) on the lab side. ✔  BPC-157 & GHK-Cu ingredient suppliers — near-term demand surge as gray market migrates to vetted channels; largely private but worth tracking for future IPO pipeline. ✔  Compounding pharmacy networks — FDA legitimization opens institutional capital to the sector; currently fragmented and mostly private, but consolidation plays are possible. ✖  Eli Lilly (LLY) & Novo Nordisk (NVO) — retail peptide alternatives threaten the premium GLP-1 pricing umbrella; generics risk accelerated ✖  Underground peptide vendors — deregulation kills the gray market premium; regulated supply floods in ✖  Legacy fitness supplement brands — peptides steal shelf space and consumer spend from protein powders and pre-workouts ✖  Unregulated "peptide stack" influencers — credibility gap closes as clinical channels gain share; TikTok era of self-dosing fades ✖  Pure-play GLP-1 specialty clinics without compounding capability — can't compete on price or scope as peptide menu widens     ⚠  THE BEAR CASE The regulatory path is not guaranteed. The FDA's summer meetings could result in more restrictions, not fewer — particularly if adverse event data surfaces during the review period.   Hims & Hers carries execution risk. Scaling a compounding infrastructure while managing prescription compliance across 50 state regulatory frameworks is operationally brutal. The company is not yet profitable on a GAAP basis.   The credibility gap cuts both ways. If a high-profile peptide adverse event occurs through a compounding channel, the reputational damage could set back the entire sector — and hand Big Pharma the regulatory win it has been lobbying for.   RFK Jr.'s regulatory posture is politically exposed. A change in administration priorities or congressional pushback could reverse these deregulatory moves faster than the market can adjust. FIVE THINGS TO KNOW THIS WEEK 1.    The peptide deregulation wave is not a curiosity — it is a structural market shift. HHS loosening restrictions on 12 peptides and scheduling FDA review meetings is the opening of a formal legitimization process for a gray-market ecosystem estimated at $50 billion. Treat it as a category creation event, not a single-stock catalyst. 2.    Hims & Hers is the best-positioned pure-play. It has telehealth infrastructure, compounding pharmacy relationships, and DTC brand trust. The 13.7% single-day pop underpriced the strategic option value. Watch the R&D pipeline announcements as the FDA review calendar develops. 3.    Noom's pharmacy acquisition is the most underreported move of the week. The company bought manufacturing capability before the regulatory green light arrived. That is disciplined capital allocation, not reactive deal-making. 4.    Lilly and Novo are not dead — but their pricing umbrella has a new structural threat that the models are not capturing. Monitor gross margin trajectory and compounding-channel market share data as leading indicators of pricing power erosion. 5.    The TikTok peptide influencer era ends when the clinical era begins. The credibility gap thesis is investable: the winners will be companies that pair legitimate clinical rails with consumer-grade UX. That is a very short list right now — which is precisely where the alpha lives. The Moon Was Never About the Moon Control of the high ground has always shaped what happens below it. Apollo was the opening move. Artemis is the next — NASA sending crews back to the Moon and building the infrastructure to keep them there. Satellites already run global supply chains, communications, and economies. Nations are spending heavily to protect that access. The Tuttle Capital Space Industry Income Blast ETF (SPCI) holds 11 pure-play names across that stack. Could SPCI have a place in a diversified portfolio? Learn More at incomeblastetfs.com/etf/spci. News vs. Noise: What’s Moving Markets Today Markets continued to make new highs, oil is still in the 90s, rates are still elevated, private credit is still a problem, and this happened…….. Remember, we think Treasury Bonds (Tbills are ok to park cash and earn a bit of interest) are not a great investment. They aren’t asymmetrical, your upside isn’t going to be that great, but you have some substantial potential downside (see above). They also are not a good hedge (see 2022, Liberation Day, Iran War, etc). Another big risk out there is this story, which I talked about the other day….. Data centre delays threaten to choke AI expansion Almost 40% of such builds in US risk hold-ups, including projects tied to Microsoft and OpenAI www.ft.com/content/f2bae708-f5c3-49b0-99c0-e4a11552427b?syn-25a6b1a6=1 Does this mean we will see a selloff soon? Maybe, but what Wall Street does a poor job of is innovating in light of new information and developments. The retail investor is different post Covid. They are connected like never before on social media and discords and institutional investors follow their lead. They are buying memory, optics, space, etc and they don’t care about any of these headlines. That’s why we suggest a process, that can protect in times of stress, do well in times of no stress, and adapt to changing markets. H- Always have hedges E- Be the casino not the gambler A-Limit your losses not your gains T- Find today and tomorrow’s top themes In other news…… Nuclear stocks are back in play on a story that the US wants to put small modular reactors on the moon. This has helped $OKLO ( ▲ 4.05% ) which was our Stock I’m Watching earlier in the week, and of course the space theme which we’ve been talking a lot about. Space stocks did pretty well yesterday. What Iran Tells Us About UFO Disclosure When governments confront unknown threats in their airspace, defense budgets surge and the same aerospace and surveillance companies move hardest. On March 2nd, Northrop jumped 6% and Lockheed 3.3% on the Iran news — and President Trump has since ordered the formal release of government UAP files, with the Pentagon confirming compliance. So if a conventional conflict can move these stocks this fast, what happens when the bigger story breaks? See the UFOD holdings: [thetruthisoutthereufod.com ETF News $MEMY Holdings Update: We replaced $CRDO ( ▲ 1.11% ) and added $COIN ( ▼ 0.8% ) All 5% positions. For a full list of MEMY holdings, visit: https://incomeblastetfs.com/etf/memy Distributor: Foreside Fund Services, LLC A Stock I’m Watching $BABA ( ▲ 1.75% ) Something is percolating in the Chinese stocks, they all have similar patterns but BABA is my favorite. If you see what I see you could also buy $BIDU ( ▲ 0.88% ) $PDD ( ▲ 1.04% ) or $KWEB ( ▲ 1.16% ) In Case You Missed It More love today from BeatTheBotz……. The H.E.A.T. (Hedge, Edge, Asymmetry and Theme) Formula is designed to empower investors to spot opportunities, think independently, make smarter (often contrarian) moves, and build real wealth. The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the Chief Executive Officer and Portfolio Manager for Tuttle Capital Management (TCM) and are subject to change without notice. The data and information provided is derived from sources deemed to be reliable but we cannot guarantee its accuracy. Investing in securities is subject to risk including the possible loss of principal. Trade notifications are for informational purposes only. TCM offers fully transparent ETFs and provides trade information for all actively managed ETFs. TCM's statements are not an endorsement of any company or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security. Trade notification files are not provided until full trade execution at the end of a trading day. The time stamp of the email is the time of file upload and not necessarily the exact time of the trades. TCM is not a commodity trading advisor and content provided regarding commodity interests is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as a recommendation. Investment recommendations for any securities or product may be made only after a comprehensive suitability review of the investor’s financial situation.© 2026 Tuttle Capital Management, LLC (TCM). TCM is a SEC-Registered Investment Adviser. All rights reserved. Keep Reading Mar 31, 2026 • 18 min read The Shadow Bank Runs America's Corporate Debt — And Nobody Is Minding the Store Apr 16, 2026 • 11 min read How to Find Tomorrow's 10-Bagger Before Wall Street Does Apr 9, 2026 • 18 min read Europe Isn't Regulating Big Tech Anymore. They're Replacing It. View more