P/OSPeptideOS evidence & status map
OPEN SOURCE MEDICINE FOUNDATIONLast reviewed 2026-10-10No dosing · no vendors · no advicesource file

← All compounds · evidence tier first, by design

Evidence tier for each claimed use · ← established · unknown →
UseE1E2E3E4E5E6E7E8
E3 Weight loss and fat reduction in obesityE3
E6 Joint cartilage and osteoarthritisE6
Class C · Gray market

AOD-9604

Described by its developers as Tyr-hGH(177-191): a tyrosine residue followed by residues 177-191 of human growth hormone. The exact residue sequence and any disulfide bond were not verified from a primary source for this record, so no one-letter sequence is given.

Non-standard residues or modifications: no plain one-letter sequence

Also: Tyr-hGH(177-191) · Codes: AOD9604

A synthetic peptide fragment from the end of human growth hormone, developed by the Australian company Metabolic Pharmaceuticals as an oral anti-obesity drug. Six placebo-controlled trials were run in the early 2000s; development stopped in 2007 after a large 24-week trial reportedly found no significant weight loss versus placebo. It is not an approved medicine, and is sold on the gray market with fat-loss and joint claims.

  • US C gray market
  • EU ? not verified
  • UK ? not verified
  • CA ? not verified
  • AU ? not verified
  • JP ? not verified
  • CN ? not verified

01Regulatory status, by jurisdiction

Standing notice. This compound is not approved as a medicine in any jurisdiction tracked here and has no active sponsor seeking approval. Material sold under this name, typically labelled “research chemical, not for human consumption”, is of unverified identity and purity and is not manufactured to pharmaceutical standards.
JurisdictionStatusDetail and primary source
USNot approvedNo FDA-approved product. AOD-9604 was formerly in 503A Category 2 and now appears on FDA's list of substances nominated but withdrawn, with FDA's stated risks. Page content current as of 22 April 2026. It does not appear in any category of FDA's 503A nominations list updated 14 May 2026.
“Compounded drugs containing AOD-9604 may pose significant risk for immunogenicity for certain routes of administration and may have complexities with regard to peptide-related impurities and API characterization.”
Certain Bulk Drug Substances for Use in Compounding that May Present Significant Safety Risks · retrieved 2026-10-10
EU UK CA AU JP CNNot yet verified from a primary source. No status is shown rather than an unsourced one.

Sport (WADA): Prohibited · class S2.2.3. Named as a growth hormone fragment in class S2.2.3, prohibited at all times, on the 2026 Prohibited List. “Growth hormone (GH), its analogues and fragments including, but not limited to: growth hormone analogues, e.g. lonapegsomatropin, somapacitan and somatrogon growth hormone fragments, e.g. AOD-9604 and hGH 176-191” WADA source

02What the human evidence shows

E3

Weight loss and fat reduction in obesity

n/cpublished human RCTs
n/cpublished human trials
0registered studies
0with posted results

n/c: not counted here; see the cited review.

The developer ran six randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials in about 900 adults, mostly with obesity, by mouth or single intravenous doses. Their efficacy results were never published as primary peer-reviewed reports; the published summary covers safety only. A review states that a 12-week trial showed modestly greater weight loss than placebo, but that development ended after a 24-week trial in 536 people failed to show significant weight loss. The evidence is therefore conflicting and incompletely reported. No trial of injected AOD-9604 for weight loss was identified. Rodent studies reported reduced weight gain and increased fat breakdown.

  • [1] Sponsor-funded safety summary of six randomised placebo-controlled trials; reports safety outcomes, not weight-loss results
  • [2] Review reporting that development stopped in 2007 after a 24-week trial in 536 participants did not show significant weight loss
  • [3] Reduced body weight gain and increased fat oxidation in obese mice, without the blood-glucose effects of full growth hormone

Registered-study counts: ClinicalTrials.gov intervention search “AOD9604”, fetched 2026-10-10. Registered studies include trials of other uses; the gap between registered and reported is itself a finding.

E6

Joint cartilage and osteoarthritis

No human trial of any design has been published for this use.

0published human RCTs
0published human trials
0registered studies
0with posted results

Joint claims rest on a rabbit osteoarthritis model in which AOD-9604 was injected into the knee with or without hyaluronic acid. No human study of osteoarthritis, cartilage or joint injury has been published.

  • [4] Intra-articular injection studied in a rabbit model of osteoarthritis

Registered-study counts: ClinicalTrials.gov intervention search “AOD9604”, fetched 2026-10-10. Registered studies include trials of other uses; the gap between registered and reported is itself a finding.

03Safety signals

S2Substantial controlled-trial safety data
  • Serious adverse events of unclear causality (FDA) [5]
    FDA states that it has identified serious adverse events that may be associated with AOD-9604, though causality is not clear, and that it has no, or only limited, safety information. The sponsor-funded trial summary reports no AOD-9604-related withdrawals or serious adverse events and more gastrointestinal events at the highest oral dose.

04What is unknown

  • Full weight-loss results of the six developer trials, including the failed 24-week trial, have never been published in a peer-reviewed journal
  • The human trials used oral or single intravenous doses; no published human data cover repeated subcutaneous injection
  • No trial lasted longer than 24 weeks, so long-term human safety is unknown
  • FDA's reported serious adverse events have not been described publicly in enough detail to judge causality
  • Identity and purity of gray-market products are unverified; a 2014 Belgian analysis of seized products was a case report only
  • Regulatory status outside the US was not verified from regulator sources for this record

05Product quality

No independent purity results have been published for this compound yet. The purity programme will publish full methods and vendor-named results, passes and failures, once its protocol has had legal review.

06Citations

  1. Safety and Tolerability of the Hexadecapeptide AOD9604 in Humans (2013). doi:10.4021/jem157w
  2. Obesity pharmacotherapy: current perspectives and future directions (2013). doi:10.2174/157340313805076322
  3. Increase of fat oxidation and weight loss in obese mice caused by chronic treatment with human growth hormone or a modified C-terminal fragment (2001). doi:10.1038/sj.ijo.0801740
  4. Effect of Intra-articular Injection of AOD9604 with or without Hyaluronic Acid in Rabbit Osteoarthritis Model. (2015). PMID 26275694
  5. Certain Bulk Drug Substances for Use in Compounding that May Present Significant Safety Risks. https://www.fda.gov/drugs/human-drug-compounding/certain-bulk-drug-substances-use-compounding-may-present-significant-safety-risks

Every DOI is resolved against Crossref and every NCT number against ClinicalTrials.gov, title for title, before publication. Regulatory sources are cited inline above with a verbatim quote and retrieval date.

07Mechanism

AOD-9604 does not bind the growth hormone receptor in cell assays. In obese mice it increased fat oxidation and markers of fat breakdown without the blood-glucose effects of full growth hormone; its molecular target is not established.

Mechanism is placed last on purpose: a plausible mechanism is not evidence that a compound works in people.

Reviewed by OSMF research team (AI-assisted, source-verified) on 2026-10-10. Found an error? It goes in the corrections log: report it.