What AOD-9604 is
AOD-9604 is a modified fragment of growth hormone's C-terminus (the lipolytic region, residues 177-191), designed to keep hGH's fat-burning signal without its growth and glucose effects. Metabolic Pharmaceuticals took it through human obesity trials two decades ago; it was well tolerated but missed its efficacy endpoints, and development stopped. It persists in the gray market as a fat-loss peptide on the strength of the mechanism more than the trial record.
What we do not know
- This is the rare case where the human evidence is negative rather than absent. Randomized trials in obesity did not show weight loss separating from placebo, despite promising animal work. It is still marketed for fat loss.
- Why the animal results did not reproduce in humans is unexplained.
- Being an hGH fragment, it inherits none of hGH's evidence base.
Reconstitution math
Concentration is everything: the same 5 mg vial gives a different draw for every amount of bacteriostatic water you add. The table uses the common 2 mL setup for each vial size, which puts every unit on a U-100 insulin syringe at 25 mcg for the default vial. Dashes mark draws too small to measure or larger than the syringe.
| Vial | BAC water | Concentration | 250 mcg | 300 mcg | 500 mcg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 mg | 2 mL | 1 mg/mL | 25 u | 30 u | 50 u |
| 5 mg | 2 mL | 2.5 mg/mL | 10 u | 12 u | 20 u |
Dosing and protocol
Community protocol: 250 to 500 mcg once daily, often fasted in the morning.
Community dosing is 250 to 500 mcg subcutaneously once daily, commonly fasted. On a 5 mg vial with 2 mL of water, 300 mcg is 12 units. It is frequently stacked with other fat-loss or GH-axis compounds; the blend calculator covers shared-vial math.
Pharmacokinetics
No curve is shown, on purpose.
AOD-9604 went through human trials as an oral and intravenous obesity candidate in the early 2000s, but no subcutaneous pharmacokinetic profile was ever published, and the development program ended after Phase 2 efficacy disappointed. There is no honest way to draw a subcutaneous curve from the available data.
How it is thought to work
A synthetic fragment of human growth hormone, residues 176-191, isolated on the theory that this region carries hGH's fat-metabolizing activity without its growth-promoting or glucose effects.
What the evidence supports
This table grades how well each outcome has been studied in humans, not how well AOD-9604 works. A strong grade means the question was asked properly, and the answer may still have been negative. Nothing here is inherited from a drug class, a close analog, or the parent molecule of a fragment.
| Outcome | Strongest published evidence |
|---|---|
| Weight loss in humans | Human RCT |
| Cartilage or joint repair | Animal only |
| Lipolysis in animal models | Animal only |
Storage and handling
Lyophilized vials keep best cold, dark, and dry; refrigeration is the community default and freezing lyophilized powder is common for long holds. After reconstitution, refrigerate at 2 to 8 C, do not freeze the solution, and date the vial. Bacteriostatic water's preservative keeps multi-dose use practical for about 28 days by USP convention, though our 120-day stability study found the preservative itself outlasts that window.
Got a certificate of analysis with your vial? Run it through our COA Reader: it reads the report in plain English, checks purity and mass against the label claim, and links the testing lab’s own verification page. Our guide to reading a COA explains what the numbers do and do not tell you.
Sources
- Ng et al., Metabolic studies of a synthetic lipolytic domain of growth hormone, Horm Res 2000PMID 11146367 · DOI
- Stier et al., Safety assessment of AOD9604, Regul Toxicol Pharmacol 2013