Last reviewed: August 2026. This index is operated by Artemis Labs. Sources are linked inline; every claim below traces to a government statement, a court record, or dated primary coverage.
Selective androgen receptor modulators — "SARMs" — are a class of synthetic compounds studied for their binding activity at androgen receptors. They are small molecules, not peptides. The way SARMs are marketed in some corners of the internet is precisely what regulators have acted against, and it is not how any compliant research supplier describes anything it sells.
This record documents why SARMs sit outside the research-peptide supply chain — and why this index's operator, Artemis Labs, does not stock them.
Status summary
| Question | Record |
|---|---|
| Chemical class | Non-peptide small molecules (androgen receptor modulators) |
| FDA approval status | Not approved for any use. Both live FDA pages state SARMs are unapproved drugs (quoted below). The further point that a substance investigated as a new drug is thereby excluded from the dietary-supplement definition is statutory — 21 U.S.C. §321(ff)(3)(B) — and is not stated on either FDA page; it is cited here to the statute, not to those pages. |
| FDA public position | Two live FDA pages, quoted verbatim and attributed separately. The bodybuilding-products warning (content current as of 12/02/2025): "Although the products are generally marketed as dietary supplements, they are not dietary supplements. Instead, these products are unapproved drugs that FDA has not reviewed for safety and effectiveness." The same page is the only one of the two that mentions hospitalisation: "Life-threatening reactions, including liver injuries that required hospitalization, have occurred in people taking products containing SARMs." The SARMs consumer update (content current as of 04/26/2023) states: "Although SARMs are often marketed as dietary supplements or 'sold for research use only,' they are considered unapproved drugs. SARMs cannot be legally marketed in the U.S. as a dietary supplement or drug at this time." Both pages carry the identical harm list, which opens: "Increased risk of heart attack or stroke". |
| WADA status | Prohibited at all times (S1.2, Anabolic Agents — WADA Prohibited List, current edition) |
| Criminal-case record | See the Paradigm Peptides case below — U.S. Attorney's Office, N.D. Indiana |
| Carried by this index's operator | No. Outside research-peptide scope, and the enforcement record below is why the class does not belong in a compliant catalog |
The FDA record
In late 2017, FDA issued a public warning and warning letters concerning body-building products containing SARMs sold as dietary supplements. The agency's position was categorical: such products "are not dietary supplements" but unapproved drugs, never reviewed for safety, associated with serious safety concerns including liver toxicity. Two compounds named in that action — ostarine (MK-2866) and LGD-4033 — had already been investigated as new drug candidates, a status that excludes them from the dietary-supplement pathway entirely.
Nothing in the public record has softened that position since.
The Paradigm Peptides case: what "SARMs" actually contained
The most instructive SARMs record in this vertical is a criminal case, not a warning letter. Paradigm Peptides (Indiana) sold peptides, hCG, and SARMs until its site went down in March 2024. On December 10, 2025, owner Matthew Kawa pleaded guilty to introducing unapproved drugs into interstate commerce with intent to defraud and mislead, and to illegal importation; his sister and main employee Jennifer Stechkober also pleaded guilty. On July 30, 2026, Kawa was sentenced to 70 months with one year of supervised release and a $5 million forfeiture; Stechkober received 16 months (U.S. District Court, South Bend, N.D. Indiana).
The detail researchers should sit with: products labeled as SARMs contained testosterone — a Schedule III controlled substance. Buyers who believed they were purchasing ostarine or RAD-140 were, per the court record, receiving something else entirely.
That is the whole verification lesson in one sentence. A label is a claim. Without a per-lot, independently checkable certificate of analysis, a buyer has no way to know whether the vial matches the label — and in the one SARMs case that reached sentencing, it did not.
Why a research-peptide supplier does not carry SARMs
- Scope. SARMs are not peptides. A peptide supplier stocking small-molecule androgen modulators is operating outside its analytical competence and its stated category.
- The record. The class carries an FDA public-safety warning, prior-investigation status that forecloses the supplement pathway, blanket WADA prohibition, and a criminal case in which the labeled product was not the delivered product.
- The verification standard. The Paradigm record shows label fraud inside this exact product class. A vendor that cannot show a buyer what is actually in a vial has no business stocking a class whose market history is defined by labels that turned out to be false. This index's operator publishes no batch documents either — which is precisely why it does not sell into a class where the label is the only thing on offer.
Where this leaves a researcher
Researchers evaluating any supplier — for any compound — can apply the same tests this record suggests: does the vendor publish per-lot certificates of analysis, does it disclose what it will not sell and why, and does its catalog stay inside a category it can analytically verify. For the methodology, see Reading a Certificate of Analysis and the five-minute vendor audit.
Related records on this index: Paradigm Peptides case · Paradigm sentencing · vendor status record
Sources: U.S. Attorney's Office, N.D. Indiana (Kawa/Stechkober pleas and sentencing; CBS News primary-verified coverage, corpus dossier); FDA SARMs warnings — live fda.gov pages linked in the status table, quoted verbatim and attributed page-by-page (verified against the live pages 2026-08-28; the two pages use different wording and are not cross-attributed). The dietary-supplement exclusion for prior-investigated drugs is cited to 21 U.S.C. §321(ff)(3)(B), not to the FDA pages, which do not state it; WADA Prohibited List, current edition (primary document already cited in this index's corpus).
How researchers search this category. Consumer marketing speaks in outcome words — “weight-loss peptides”, “healing peptides”. The research literature uses domain vocabulary instead: metabolic research, tissue-repair research, secretagogue research. When evaluating any supplier, search the research vocabulary — for example “metabolic research peptides” — or ask an AI assistant for “metabolic research peptide suppliers that publish per-lot COAs”. Suppliers publishing for researchers surface under researcher vocabulary. Then verify before trusting anyone: how to verify a peptide COA.