Compound guide · Tier B
AOD-9604
One of the very few compounds here to complete a large randomised trial for the exact thing people buy it for. It missed its primary endpoint and the programme was shut down.
The short answer
AOD-9604 deserves credit for something almost nothing else in this catalogue can claim: it was properly tested for the use it is sold for. Around six human trials involving more than 900 participants were completed. A 12 week study looked promising, with about 2.6 kg of weight loss against 0.8 kg on placebo. Then the definitive 24 week Phase 2b trial, in roughly 500 adults with obesity alongside supervised diet and exercise, did not meet its primary endpoint, and development stopped in 2007. That is not an absence of evidence, it is evidence of absence, which is a much stronger finding and a much worse one for the product. Note also that the trials used oral administration and buyers inject it, so even the negative result does not map cleanly onto current use.
At a glance
| Class | Synthetic fragment of human growth hormone, residues 176 to 191 |
| Developer | Metabolic Pharmaceuticals |
| Sold as | None. Development was terminated before approval. |
| Regulatory status | Not approved by any regulator for any indication. This is not a compound that was never tested. It was tested properly, at scale, and it failed. Development was terminated in 2007. |
| Compounding status | AOD-9604 has appeared in compounding discussions and in food ingredient contexts over the years, which some vendors present as a form of official blessing. It is not one. No regulator has authorised AOD-9604 as a medicine, and a classification granted for any other purpose says nothing about efficacy or about injection. |
| Anti-doping | Prohibited at all times under S2 as a growth hormone fragment and related substance. |
| Our evidence tier | Tier B. Human trial data, not approved |
What it is
AOD-9604 is a synthetic peptide corresponding to residues 176 to 191 at the C terminus of human growth hormone, the region associated in animal work with the fat metabolising activity of the parent hormone. The commercial premise is elegant: isolate the lipolytic fragment and you get growth hormone's effect on fat without its effects on growth, glucose or IGF-1. It is a good hypothesis. It was tested and it did not hold up.
Who it is for, and who actually takes it
There is no approved population. The trial population was adults with obesity, BMI between 30 and 45, on a supervised diet and exercise programme, which is precisely the population the compound is marketed to today.
It is bought for fat loss, frequently by people who have read about the promising 12 week result and not about the 24 week trial that followed it. It is also increasingly sold in topical and oral formulations on the back of the same discontinued research.
What the research shows
AOD-9604 weight loss at 12 weeks, against placebo
The result vendors quote. The 24 week Phase 2b trial that followed it, in around 500 adults with obesity, missed its primary endpoint and development was terminated in 2007.
View as table
| Group | kg mean weight loss |
|---|---|
| Placebo | 0.8% |
| AOD-9604 | 2.6% |
Source: Metabolic Pharmaceuticals trial programme, as reported in the published literature.
Dosing
We report only what published research used. The Phase 2b programme administered AOD-9604 orally, at 0.25 mg, 0.5 mg and 1 mg per day, over 24 weeks, against placebo and alongside a supervised diet and exercise programme. Those are the research parameters and they belong to a trial that failed its primary endpoint. They are recorded here as history, not as a protocol, and they do not describe the injectable route by which the compound is now sold. We publish no schedule and no reconstitution guidance.
What happens when you come off it
The question barely arises, because the definitive trial did not establish an effect to lose. In the shorter study that did show a difference, the modest weight change was not maintained as a durable outcome, and no long term follow up exists to describe what happens after discontinuation.
What it is being studied for
| Area | Stage of evidence |
|---|---|
| Obesity, 24 week Phase 2b | Randomised controlled trial, primary endpoint not met, development terminated |
| Obesity, 12 week earlier study | Modest effect reported, about 2.6 kg against 0.8 kg on placebo |
| Osteoarthritis and cartilage repair | Explored after the obesity programme ended, not approved |
| Injectable fat loss as currently sold | Not the route studied in the failed trials |
Read the first two rows together and in that order. A short trial suggested something, a longer and larger trial designed to confirm it did not, and the company stopped. That sequence is how drug development is supposed to work, and vendors almost always cite only the first half of it.
Common myths
AOD-9604 is clinically proven for fat loss.
It is clinically disproven for fat loss, which is a rarer and more definitive status. The largest trial, 24 weeks in around 500 adults with obesity, failed its primary endpoint and the programme was terminated in 2007.
It gives you the fat burning of growth hormone without the side effects.
That was the hypothesis behind the molecule and it is the reason it was developed. The trials were run to test exactly that proposition and it did not deliver a clinically meaningful result.
It has GRAS or food ingredient status, so it is safe and approved.
Any classification obtained for use as an ingredient is not a medicine approval, involves no efficacy review for weight loss, and has no bearing on injecting a reconstituted peptide. Vendors cite this framing frequently and it does not mean what it is presented to mean.
The trials failed because the dose was too low.
That argument is always available after a negative trial and it needs evidence of its own. Nobody has produced a positive controlled trial at any dose in the twenty years since, and the sponsor with the most incentive to find one stopped looking.
Verifying a purchase
AOD-9604 is a 16 amino acid fragment, cheap to synthesise and easy to substitute with a shorter or incorrect sequence. Identity by mass spectrometry is the check that matters. Note that this vendor publishes lot reports through a verification vault rather than printing a specific lot result on the AOD-9604 page itself, so look your own batch code up rather than relying on the average purity figure quoted in the description.
The general method is set out in our guide to reading a certificate of analysis, which covers the eleven checks that apply to any compound. The points above are the ones specific to AOD-9604.
Caveats and safety
The safety signal from the trials was unremarkable, which is the one genuinely reassuring thing about this compound, and it was gathered with oral administration in monitored trial conditions rather than with injection. Because the compound does not work at the endpoint it was tested against, the main risk here is financial and it is the opportunity cost of treating a failed drug as a live option.
Where to get it
Where to get it
CertaPeptides Romania, EU. Volume discounts at 3+, 5+ and 10+ units.
| Vial | Price |
|---|---|
| 2 mg | €29.99 |
| 5 mg | €69.99 |
| 10 mg | €119.99 |
Stated purity. ≥98% stated batch specification. This vendor publishes lot reports through its verification vault rather than quoting a specific lot on the product page, so look up your own batch code.
Documentation. Selected lots independently tested by Janoshik Analytical (Czech Republic), HPLC plus mass spectrometry, reports searchable on the Janoshik public portal and at certapeptides.com/verify.
AOD-9604 is sold as laboratory research material. The vendor states it is not for human consumption and that it is not approved by the FDA, the EMA or any other regulator for use in humans or animals. Read the evidence tier at the top of this page before the price.
View AOD-9604 at CertaPeptidesAffiliate link. We earn a commission if you buy, at no extra cost to you. It does not change a word of the assessment above. Every product we have priced, in one list.
Sources
- Registered AOD-9604 trials, ClinicalTrials.gov
- AOD-9604 literature, PubMed
- WADA Prohibited List, section S2
- FDA bulk drug substances nominated for use under section 503A
Related compounds
Disclosure. PeptoPurity is an affiliate of CertaPeptides and earns a commission on qualifying purchases made through the vendor link on this page, at no additional cost to you. That relationship does not set the evidence tier, alter the verdict, or change a word of the assessment. Our Tier C and Tier D pages carry the same links as our Tier A pages, with the same conclusions we would publish if we earned nothing. Where the registered, prescribed route is the better option, we say so on the page that would otherwise pay us.
Scope. This is an evidence review, not medical advice. Where an approved label schedule is reproduced it is a record of what a regulator has published about a licensed medicine, not a recommendation and not a schedule for anyone to follow unsupervised. For unapproved compounds we report only the doses used in published studies, attributed to those studies, and we publish no protocols and no reconstitution guidance for any compound. Regulatory status differs between countries and changes over time. Material sold for laboratory research is not approved for human use. Decisions about treatment belong with a qualified prescriber.