Weight & Metabolic
BRP (BRINP2-related peptide)
aka BRP · brp · brp peptide · BRINP2-related peptide · brinp2-related peptide · brinp2 related peptide · brinp2 peptide · natural ozempic · natural ozempic peptide · stanford peptide · stanford weight loss peptide · ozempic alternative peptide · AI-discovered peptide
Grade
A newly discovered appetite-cutting peptide that worked in mice and pigs without obvious nausea, dubbed 'natural Ozempic' by headlines, but never yet given to a human.
- Class
- Experimental 12-amino-acid peptide cut from the human BRINP2 protein; not a GLP-1 drug and not related to semaglutide
- Evidence
- Grade D · Animal data only
- Sport / WADA
- Prohibited at all times under S0 (non-approved substances). It is not named on the WADA Prohibited List, but S0 bans any substance not covered by another section that has no current approval by any government health authority for human therapeutic use, and BRP has no such approval anywhere.
- Last reviewed
- 2026-10
Grade D · Animal data only
Why this grade
Everything known comes from one 2025 study in mice, minipigs and rats. No person has been given BRP in a published or registered trial, so there is no human evidence on whether it works or is safe.
What is it?
Why people buy it
People are interested in it for weight loss. Headlines called it 'natural Ozempic' because it cut appetite in animals.
What we actually know
- •It is a small peptide found in the body, first described by Stanford scientists in 2025.
- •In mice and pigs, one injection before a meal cut how much they ate.
- •Fat mice lost fat over two weeks. They did not seem to lose muscle.
- •It has never been tested in people. It is not a licensed medicine in the UK, or anywhere.
What might happen
- •Nobody knows if it causes weight loss in people.
- •In animals it did not seem to cause sickness or anxiety. Nobody knows if that holds in people.
- •It wears off within minutes in the blood. Nobody knows how it would work as a long-term treatment.
- •Nobody knows the side effects or long-term risks in people. There is no safety data.
- •Products claiming to be BRP have been reported online. Nobody checks what is in the bottle.
- •In sport, it is banned at all times. Unapproved drugs count as banned.
Bottom line
An exciting animal finding. In people, it is untested, and not a real alternative to licensed weight-loss medicines yet.
Know someone taking this?
Send on WhatsAppIt is like finding a new dimmer switch for hunger in the wiring of a mouse's brain. It works on mice and pigs, and seems not to blow the fuse that makes people feel sick on Ozempic. Nobody has yet tried it in a human house.
How is it meant to work?
BRP is thought to act on appetite-control neurons in the hypothalamus. In mice it switched on nerve cells in hypothalamic appetite centres (seen as FOS activation) but not in the brainstem areas linked to nausea, and it worked through a signal (cAMP-PKA-CREB) typical of a particular class of cell-surface receptor that has not yet been identified. It did not need the GLP-1 receptor, leptin or the MC4R appetite receptor, which is why researchers think it is a separate route to appetite control from semaglutide-type drugs.
What's it studied for?
Research contexts. Not proven uses, and not recommendations.
Does the human evidence stack up?
None. The only human data are measurements of naturally occurring BRP in human spinal fluid and its gene activity in the brain; no one has been given it. No trial of BRP is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov as of October 2026. Stanford said in 2025 that the senior author had co-founded a company to launch human clinical trials 'in the near future'. Claims that it is a 'natural Ozempic' for people are extrapolated from mice and minipigs.
What could go wrong?
- !No human safety, dosing or efficacy data exist.
- !The receptor BRP acts on is unknown, so off-target effects cannot yet be predicted.
- !It is cleared from the blood within minutes in animals, so the injections used in studies do not tell us how a practical human treatment would behave.
- !The absence of nausea and aversion was shown in animal behaviour tests, which do not reliably predict human side effects.
- !Products claiming to be BRP have been reported for sale online; they are unregulated and unverified.
- !The discoverers hold patents and the senior author co-founded a company developing it.
- !'Natural Ozempic' headlines invite comparison with licensed medicines that have large human trials; BRP has none.
Is it legal in the UK?
BRP is not a licensed medicine in the UK and has no MHRA marketing authorisation; it is not approved anywhere. It is not a controlled drug. Any product sold online would be an unlicensed research chemical, and selling or promoting it for human use would breach the Human Medicines Regulations 2012. There is no lawful route to obtain it as a medicine in the UK.
Sources
- 01Prohormone cleavage prediction uncovers a non-incretin anti-obesity peptide — Coassolo L, Danneskiold-Samsøe NB, Nguyen Q, et al. (Svensson KJ senior author), Nature (2025)
The founding paper: mice, minipigs and rats only. Authors declare patents on BRP; senior author co-founded Merrifield Therapeutics.
- 02Prohormone cleavage prediction uncovers a non-incretin anti-obesity peptide (full text), PubMed Central (2025)
Detailed results: minipig food intake cut about 50% at 1 h; 14-day obese-mouse study; no aversion, pica or anxiety-like behaviour; rapid clearance; receptor unknown.
- 03Naturally occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side effects, Stanford Medicine News Center (2025)
Obese mice on daily BRP for 14 days lost about 3 g, mostly fat, while controls gained about 3 g. Senior author co-founded a company to launch human trials.
- 04No, You Cannot Buy This Yet: What The Stanford Appetite Molecule Finding Actually Means For Patients, Medical Daily (2026)
July 2026 report that no human study had been registered and that products were being marketed online as BRP.
- 05World Anti-Doping Code International Standard: Prohibited List 2026, World Anti-Doping Agency (2026)
S0 non-approved substances.
Related
Before you trust a vial
Peptides are freeze-dried for a reason. If you have seen BRP (BRINP2-related peptide) sold pre-mixed in a ready-to-use pen or syringe, here is why that is a red flag for potency, sterility and dosing.
Storage & stability →Stay posted
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