AOD-9604 Peptide
The trial read out and it did not work. So rather than shelve the compound, somebody changed what it was for a living. That is the whole story and it is why you can buy it.
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For research use only. Not for human or veterinary use.
What AOD-9604 Peptide is
The plain-language version, first.
A drug candidate that failed, then got a new job title.
AOD-9604 is a 16-amino-acid peptide, sequence YLRIVQCRSVEGSCGF, described by the FDA as a synthetic fragment of human growth hormone spanning residues 177 to 191 with an additional tyrosine at the N terminus and a disulphide bond between the cysteines at positions 7 and 14, free base formula C78H123N23O23S2, molar mass 1815.09, CAS 221231-10-3. Six randomised double-blind placebo-controlled human trials were run, the pivotal obesity trial found no significant weight loss against placebo, and the FDA restated that in writing in its 2024 review.
Growth hormone is a big molecule, 191 residues, doing a lot of different jobs at once.
The idea here was reasonable enough. If the different jobs live in different regions, clip off the region you want and leave the rest behind.
AOD-9604 is the last sixteen residues, 176 through 191, with a tyrosine stuck on the front. CAS 221231-10-3, 1815.08 g/mol.
Metabolic Pharmaceuticals, an Australian company, was built substantially around this one asset. The programme ran through the 2000s.
Then the OPTIONS study read out, and the programme ended.
That is not a controversial reading. That is what happened.
What is AOD-9604?
Mechanism studied, not outcome promised.
Growth hormone lipolytic activity was attributed to a short C-terminal region. Isolate it and you should get fat metabolism without growth signalling, IGF-1 rise or glucose disturbance.
The separation held in animals and cells. Over 24 weeks in roughly 500 people it produced no statistically significant weight loss against placebo.
A sixteen-residue tail clipped off a much larger hormone, with a bit added back on.
Alright, here's the honest problem with explaining the mechanism.
The clean version goes: clip the fragment, keep one activity, drop the rest. Tidy.
Attractive. Easy to put on a label.
The trial is the part that gets to decide whether tidy was also true, and the trial did not agree.
So anything you read describing a confident mechanism of action for this compound is describing a hypothesis that was tested and did not carry, written as though the testing never happened.
Worth knowing where the rest of the claims come from too. A lot of what circulates about the bare 176-191 fragment is actually borrowed from papers about this molecule, and a lot of what circulates about this molecule is borrowed from the era before the readout.
Here's the honest part. We stock it, we test it, and we are not going to pretend the file says something it doesn't.
A failed endpoint is data. It is just data nobody wants to put in a product description.
The research so far for AOD-9604 Peptide
Where the evidence is thin, we say so.
Six randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trials by Metabolic Pharmaceuticals, culminating in the OPTIONS study, phase IIb, roughly 500 patients over 24 weeks.
Weight loss at primary and secondary endpoints too low to reach statistical significance. Obesity development terminated. FDA notes the pivotal trial does not appear to have been published in the medical literature.
At the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee on 4 December 2024, FDA concluded that clinical studies do not show any statistically significant weight loss when AOD-9604 was administered to patients with obesity compared to placebo, and that there is a lack of evidence to support its effectiveness for the treatment of obesity. FDA recommended against adding it to the 503A bulk drug substances list.
The interesting part isn't the pharmacology. It's the paperwork.
The scientifically interesting thing about AOD-9604 is not the pharmacology. It's what happened after the pharmacology stopped cooperating.
The programme ended when the pivotal study read out.
And then the compound was repositioned. Not as a drug. As a food and supplement ingredient.
There is a 2014 paper, by company-affiliated authors, titled as a novel nutraceutical ingredient, which asserts self-affirmed generally recognised as safe status for use in foods, drinks and supplements.
Read that sentence twice. Self-affirmed means the affirming was done by the party that benefits from it. It is a real regulatory pathway and it is also not the same thing as a regulator agreeing.
So the honest summary: a drug candidate whose trial did not deliver, given a second commercial life through a different classification, with the safety position partly self-declared.
None of that makes it uninteresting. It makes it a case study, and we would rather hand you the case study than a slogan.
AOD-9604 vial sizes and current stock are listed below.
AOD-9604 Peptide specs
The chemistry, exactly as released.
Who studies AOD-9604 Peptide
Who tends to order this one, and why.
A research compound does not have one audience. It has a handful of rooms where the same question keeps coming up, and the question is a different question in each of them.
Obesity pharmacology
Six human trials over a decade, ending in a 24-week phase IIb in roughly 500 patients that did not beat placebo.
Growth hormone biology
The question of whether GH metabolic effects can be separated from its growth and IGF-1 effects. This compound is the cleanest test of that idea anyone has run in people.
Regulatory reviewers
FDA evaluated it in December 2024 for the 503A compounding list and recommended against it, citing both efficacy and characterisation concerns.
Anti-doping laboratories
WADA 2026 Prohibited List section S2.2 names AOD-9604 and hGH 176-191 explicitly among growth hormone fragments. Prohibited at all times.
Sold for laboratory research only. This is not guidance for personal use, and nothing here is a recommendation.
AOD-9604 Peptide backstory
How it got here.
Metabolic Pharmaceuticals was an Australian company built substantially around this asset. The programme ran through the 2000s and ended when the OPTIONS study read out.
What happened next is the part that explains why you can buy it. The compound was repositioned from a drug candidate to a food and supplement ingredient.
A 2014 paper by company-affiliated authors is titled a novel nutraceutical ingredient for improved metabolic health and asserts self-affirmed generally recognised as safe status for use in foods, drinks and dietary supplements. That is a self-affirmed claim in a journal article by people with an interest.
We searched the FDA GRAS Notice Inventory and found no GRAS notice and no FDA response letter for AOD-9604. Anyone telling you it is FDA GRAS approved is overstating what exists.
- 1
A promising fragment
Growth hormone lipolytic activity attributed to residues 177 to 191. Add an N-terminal tyrosine for stability and you have a candidate that should separate fat metabolism from growth.
- 2
Six trials, then failure
The programme ran through the 2000s and ended when the OPTIONS study read out with no significant weight loss against placebo.
- 3
Repositioned as a supplement
The asset moved from drug candidate to food and supplement ingredient on a self-affirmed GRAS claim. FDA has issued no GRAS response letter for it, and in 2024 recommended against permitting it in compounded drugs.
Buying AOD-9604 Peptide in Canada
What ships, how fast, and the paperwork.
The hard part of buying research material is almost never the compound. It is the logistics. What leaves the building, how fast it moves, and what is in the box beside the vial. Here is ours, plainly.
Same day out of British Columbia
Our building, our cold packs, our people, and nothing sitting in a customs queue while you refresh a tracking page.
Then into the fridge
Keep it cold and keep it dark. Sealed and freeze-dried it handles a rough trip without ice. Once it lands, fridge.
We are not going to claim it works
This compound is bought on a reputation its own pivotal trial did not support. FDA has published that conclusion. We stock it because there is demand for it, and we would rather tell you what the file says than sell you a story it does not support.
AOD-9604 Peptide vs Fragment HGH 176-191
Stacked together constantly, compared almost never.
These two are treated as interchangeable across most of the internet. They are not, and knowing the difference is most of understanding either.
AOD-9604 is the 176-191 fragment with a tyrosine added on the front. It carried a full development programme, an Australian sponsor, and a pivotal study that read out.
The bare fragment is the same sixteen residues without the modification, and its own literature goes back to the late 1970s and stays small.
The claims travel in one direction: from this molecule's papers onto the bare fragment's reputation. Worth knowing which file you are actually reading. Fragment HGH 176-191 has its own page here
Stuff people ask about AOD-9604 Peptide
If your question is not here, email us. Real human answers.
Not in its pivotal trial. FDA reviewed the programme in December 2024 and stated that clinical studies do not show any statistically significant weight loss when AOD-9604 was administered to patients with obesity compared to placebo. The sponsor terminated obesity development because of the failure of the study.
Apparently not. FDA notes in its 2024 briefing document that it does not appear that this study was published in the medical literature, and FDA own source for the OPTIONS result was a company filing to the Australian Stock Exchange rather than a journal.
No. A 2014 paper by company-affiliated authors asserts self-affirmed generally recognised as safe status for food use. We searched the FDA GRAS Notice Inventory and found no GRAS notice and no FDA response letter for AOD-9604. Self-affirmed GRAS is a company assertion, not an FDA approval, and in 2024 FDA recommended against permitting the substance in compounded drugs.
FDA describes AOD-9604 as a synthetic fragment of human growth hormone, residues 177 to 191, with an additional tyrosine at the N-terminal end. The WADA prohibited list handles AOD-9604 and hGH 176-191 as named examples in the same entry, so anti-doping treats them as the same family.
The earlier trial, METAOD005, tested up to 30 milligrams orally over twelve weeks and reported a signal described as significant for females. The pivotal OPTIONS study tested 0.25 to 1 milligram, a range 30 to 120 times lower, over 24 weeks. The programme moved to a much lower dose and lost the signal. No injectable phase IIb efficacy trial was ever run.
Human tolerability looked clean. Stier and colleagues reported tolerability indistinguishable from placebo across the trial programme. FDA nonetheless flagged nonclinical concerns in 2024, including dose-dependent changes in bone markers, hepatic vacuolation in animals and equivocal genotoxicity results, plus inadequate characterisation of peptide impurities and aggregates. A clean safety profile on a compound that did not beat placebo is not the same thing as a reason to use it.
Good pairing options with AOD-9604 Peptide
What researchers stack alongside it.
Pairing is where research gets ahead of itself. These are the compounds researchers put in the same order as AOD-9604 Peptide, which is a statement about ordering habits, not about evidence. Two things in one cart have not been studied together unless somebody studied them together.
The original incretin, exactly as your gut makes it, no edits. Plasma half-life about one minute, which is why every famous analogue exists and why this one is strictly a reference material.
Two different satiety signalling systems in one vial. Which sounds simple until you try to work out which half any given result belongs to.
Order AOD-9604 Peptide right now
One last look before you decide.
Freeze-dried, COA on the page, ships cold
If you are researching AOD-9604 Peptide and you want a source you do not have to second-guess, start with the paperwork on this page. For research use only.
Not for human consumption. Not approved by Health Canada or any other regulatory body.
Page last updated August 19, 2026
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