What Is a Captive Lab? (And Why It Matters for Peptides)
You'll hear the term "captive lab" thrown around in peptide circles. Here's what it actually means — and why it matters. A captive lab is a testing "lab" that exists to test for one vendor only , often spun up by or alongside that vendor. Because it serves a single master, its "independent" results are really the vendor grading its own homework. Why independence is the whole point A genuine third-party lab tests for many competing vendors — so it can't favour any one of them without losing the others. A captive lab has exactly one client to please, which removes the independence that made the testing meaningful. How to recognize one One client — search the lab's name; if it only appears next to a single vendor, that's the tell. Suspicious timing — a WHOIS lookup shows the lab's domain registered around the same time as the vendor's. No footprint — no accreditation, staff, or reviews outside that one vendor. A ...