When a market outpaces its safety infrastructure, patients pay the price. PepKey exists to close that gap — clinician-built, completely independent, and free to use.
The problem wasn't the peptides. It was the lack of accountability around them.
Telehealth platforms and med spas were prescribing complex compounded peptides with no named medical directors, no disclosed pharmacy sources, and no way for patients to verify any of it. The market was real. The infrastructure wasn't.
PepKey was founded by Mike Paepke, PA-C, MMSc — a fellowship-trained orthopedic physician assistant who completed his graduate thesis work at the Yale PA Online Program focused on peptide therapeutics and their long-term medical cost implications. In clinical practice, he kept getting the same question from patients: “Is this clinic actually legitimate?”
There was no good answer. So he built one.
PepKey is the verification layer that should have existed from day one. Independent. No paid rankings. No clinical conflicts. Just a clear signal about who patients can actually trust.
Provider scoring is the first layer. The second is pharmacy-level lot verification — a publicly queryable Certificate of Analysis database for compounded peptide medications. Every batch. Every lot number. Potency, sterility, endotoxin results. Free to search, forever.
The grey market cannot submit lot numbers to a public registry without regulatory exposure. That absence is information. When a pharmacy's lots don't appear in the registry, patients should ask why.
“The grey market cannot compete with a verified, open, permanent record of quality. Every COA in the registry is a data point that legitimate care exists — and can be proven.”
Our scoring methodology is fully published. Every criterion, every weight, every threshold — public.
Paid tiers affect placement and features. They never affect trust scores. This is absolute.
Paid placements are labeled. Revenue model is disclosed. Conflicts of interest are published.
We never diagnose, prescribe, recommend dosages, or imply PepKey practices medicine.
The question that started PepKey was simple: "Is this clinic actually legitimate?" Mike Paepke heard it from patients repeatedly. And there was no good answer.
Mike is a PA-C with fellowship training in orthopedics and a Master of Medical Science degree from the Yale PA Online Program, where his graduate thesis examined peptide therapeutics and their long-term medical cost implications. He's the right person to build this because he's both a trained clinician and someone who has seen firsthand what the absence of accountability looks like in practice.
PepKey doesn't certify providers. It scores them based on publicly verifiable information. The distinction matters: certification is something we grant. Scoring is something the data produces. Mike built the methodology, not the marketing.
Available for interviews on: peptide therapy safety, provider verification, compounding pharmacy regulation, patient advocacy in cash-pay medicine.
Every provider in our directory is independently scored on 12 objective criteria.
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