Read This First
This page is not built on clinical evidence. Cost and access are commercial and legal facts, not scientific findings. They come from the regulatory record and the statements of the company that developed the compound, and they change on timescales of months.
AOD-9604 has no list price, no prescription route in the United States, no insurance pathway and no manufacturer, because it is not approved anywhere and the company that owns it does not sell it.1
This page publishes no prices. What follows is what determines the money, and one question that sits underneath all of it: what is being purchased when the trials that tested the purchase already returned a negative result.
Why There Is No Price
What a Price Normally Represents
For an approved medicine, a price sits on top of a known quantity of a known substance, made to a validated standard, for a stated indication, with a documented effect size. Every element under the number is fixed, which is what makes the number comparable across sellers.
For AOD-9604, none of that holds. There is no approved product, no manufacturing standard shared across sellers, no verified label quantity and no approved indication. There is a documented effect size, from six trials in 925 people, and it was not distinguishable from placebo on weight.12
What Makes This Compound's Economics Unusual
Most unapproved peptides are sold on preclinical promise, with the human question open. AOD-9604 is sold on preclinical promise with the human question closed. The animal studies that generate the product copy are the same studies that persuaded a company to spend six years and 925 participants testing the claim, and the claim failed.1
That changes what a price is buying. With a compound whose human data do not exist, a buyer is paying for uncertainty. With this one, a buyer is paying to re-run a trial that has already been run, with one participant, no placebo arm, and an unverified product.
The animal data are real and the safety data are real. Neither is what the money is spent on. The money is spent on weight loss, and that is the one endpoint with a human answer.
Access
Is There a Legal Route?
Not in the United States. AOD-9604 is not approved, is not a component of an approved drug, and is not on the 503A bulks list. It was considered for that list on 4 December 2024, when the FDA's Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee reviewed it for obesity and voted 0 to 12 against inclusion, following an FDA review that found a lack of evidence of effectiveness by any route.1112 It was not among the seven peptides the same committee considered in July 2026.3 It sits on the FDA's list of substances nominated for compounding and withdrawn, with a safety entry that says the agency lacks sufficient information to know whether it would cause harm.4
There is no clinical trial to join. No study of AOD-9604 in any indication is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov, and the company's development programme ended in 2007.5
The developer's 2013 statement said Australian doctors could prescribe it through compounding pharmacies.1 ONPEPS has not verified whether that remains the case and does not extend it to any other jurisdiction.
Does Insurance Cover It?
No, and there is nothing to appeal. Payers reimburse approved products for approved indications. With no approval anywhere there is no covered indication and no billing code attached to one. This is not a denial to contest; there is no coverage decision for a plan to make.
Can HSA or FSA Funds Be Used?
Tax-advantaged health accounts cover qualified medical expenses, which generally requires a legitimate medical purpose and often a provider's documentation. A product that cannot be lawfully dispensed for human use sits poorly against that, and the account holder carries the consequences of a disallowed expense. That is a question for the plan administrator.
What About the "Food Supplement" Route?
The compound's GRAS status covers oral use in foods and supplements at up to 1 mg a day, by a company-convened panel, with no FDA notice on file.16 Whether any product actually on sale operates under that status, ONPEPS cannot say; the retail market is overwhelmingly injectable powder, which the status does not cover at all. An oral supplement at 1 mg a day would also be dosing at the bottom of a range that produced no weight loss in the trials at up to 54 mg a day.7
What the Money Buys
Where Does the Spread Between Sellers Come From?
| Cost component | Present in | What it buys |
|---|---|---|
| Consultation and clinician time | Clinics, telehealth | A history, an examination, a record, and someone accountable |
| Premises, staff and liability | Clinics | Overhead and recourse, not product |
| Bundling into a "fat-loss stack" | Clinics, vendors | Other compounds, each with its own evidence problem, priced together so none is examined alone |
| Marketing and affiliate commission | All channels, often invisible | Nothing for the buyer |
| The compound itself | All channels | Raw material of unverified identity, at a cost small relative to the components above it. ONPEPS publishes no prices; read this as reasoning about cost structure rather than a measured breakdown |
None of the spread buys verified product quality, because no channel offers that. A higher price buys service and accountability where those exist. It does not buy the trial-grade material that the safety record was generated with.
Why Is It Usually Sold in a Stack?
AOD-9604 is rarely the headline product. It is typically bundled with growth hormone secretagogues such as CJC-1295 and ipamorelin in "fat loss" or "body recomposition" protocols, a pattern the 2026 endocrinology literature describes in detail.2
The commercial logic is straightforward. A compound with a negative human trial is easier to sell as one line in a protocol than as a product on its own, and a stack's price cannot be attributed to any single component. The evidential logic runs the other way: no study has examined any of these combinations, so a stack is not more evidence-based than its weakest member. It is less, because the weakest member can no longer be identified.
Does a Consultation Change the Legal Position?
No. A prescription cannot authorise what federal law does not permit to be compounded or sold. A clinical setting can make an unlawful supply feel like a medical one. It does not make it one.
The Spending Decision
What Result Is Being Paid For?
This is the question the rest of the page exists to set up.
The product copy for AOD-9604 promises fat loss, usually citing the rodent studies in which the fragment reduced weight gain and increased fat oxidation.8 Those studies are accurately described. They were also the basis for a human programme whose largest trial, 24 weeks in 534 people, "failed to demonstrate a significant benefit on the primary weight-loss endpoint."2
So the purchase is not a bet on an open question. It is a bet against a closed one, made with a product that cannot be verified to be the compound that was tested, by a route that was not tested.
Safety is the one thing the trials did establish, and it is the one thing the product copy is entitled to claim, for oral and intravenous dosing of pharmaceutical-grade material. It is not what anyone is paying for.
What Is the Risk Side of the Ledger?
Two things belong alongside the price.
The FDA states it has "identified serious adverse events that may be associated with AOD-9604, though causality is not clear," and that for the injectable routes people actually use it has no or only limited safety information.4 That is a regulator saying it holds reports it cannot yet interpret.
And the compound is prohibited in sport at all times under WADA section S0, which for a tested athlete is a cost that dwarfs the vial.9 A validated urine test with a stable long-window metabolite has existed since 2015.10
What Should Be Asked Before Paying?
Are you aware the developer's own trials found no clinically meaningful weight loss, and what do you believe changed since?1
On what legal basis are you supplying this in this jurisdiction?
Where does the product come from, and can I see a certificate of analysis matched to the batch I will receive, with identity testing and not only purity?
What is the price of each component of the stack separately?
What monitoring is included, and who do I contact if I have a reaction?
Does anyone here earn commission on product sales?
The first question is the informative one. A seller who does not know the trial history is not competent to sell the product; a seller who knows it and sells anyway has told you what the sale is.
What Would Change This Page
Approval, or a Trial
Either would change the access position, and neither is in prospect. No company is developing AOD-9604 for any indication, no trial is registered, and the FDA's compounding process has already taken it up and declined it.512
The developer's stated plan in 2013 was to find a pharmaceutical partner for osteoarthritis.1 Thirteen years later there is one rabbit study. If a human osteoarthritis programme were ever registered, this page would need a new section; it would not need a new conclusion about weight loss.
A Note on Price Comparisons
Figures circulate comparing the monthly cost of AOD-9604 favourably with approved weight-loss drugs. The comparison is between a product with a documented effect size and one whose documented effect size is zero. A price-per-month comparison between them is not a comparison of value, and ONPEPS does not make it.
Related ONPEPS Coverage
AOD-9604 library entry: the trials, the result and the regulatory position
AOD-9604 sourcing and quality: an orphaned compound and what a buyer can verify
Semaglutide cost, insurance and access: what an approved weight-loss drug's pricing looks like
Tesamorelin: the approved growth hormone pathway drug for visceral fat
Sources
Calzada Ltd / Metabolic Pharmaceuticals Pty Ltd. AOD9604 – Important Clarifications. Company statement, 26 April 2013. lateral-pharma.com
Dominikowski A, Rękoś Z, Olejarz M, Szczepanek-Parulska E, Domin R, Ruchała M. The emerging landscape of performance-enhancing peptides modulating GH-IGF1 axis: bridging the gap between clinical evidence and patient self-administration. Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2026;17:1822475. Open access. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42395176
US Food and Drug Administration. July 23-24, 2026: Meeting of the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee. Docket FDA-2025-N-6895. fda.gov
US Food and Drug Administration. Category 2 of the Bulk Substances Nominated Under Sections 503A or 503B of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Entry for AOD-9604. Content current as of 22 April 2026. fda.gov
ClinicalTrials.gov. Studies listing AOD-9604 as an intervention. Registry search returning no studies; checked 16 September 2026. clinicaltrials.gov
US Food and Drug Administration. GRAS Notice Inventory, search for "AOD9604". Returns no records. Searched 16 September 2026. hfpappexternal.fda.gov
Stier H, Vos E, Kenley D. Safety and tolerability of the hexadecapeptide AOD9604 in humans. J Endocrinol Metab. 2013;3(1-2):7-15. Open access; not indexed in PubMed; co-authored by the sponsor's chief executive. doi.org/10.4021/jem157w
Heffernan MA, Thorburn AW, Fam B, Summers R, Conway-Campbell B, Waters MJ, et al. Increase of fat oxidation and weight loss in obese mice caused by chronic treatment with human growth hormone or a modified C-terminal fragment. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 2001;25(10):1442-1449. Paywalled. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11673763
World Anti-Doping Agency. The Prohibited List, section S0, Non-approved substances. Current edition. wada-ama.org
Cox HD, Smeal SJ, Hughes CM, Cox JE, Eichner D. Detection and in vitro metabolism of AOD9604. Drug Test Anal. 2015;7(1):31-38. Paywalled. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25208511
US Food and Drug Administration. AOD-9604-related bulk drug substances: FDA review for the December 4, 2024 meeting of the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee. Docket FDA-2024-N-4777. fda.gov
US Food and Drug Administration. Final Summary Minutes of the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee Meeting, December 4, 2024. Approved 21 February 2025. fda.gov
Not Medical or Financial Advice
AOD-9604 is not approved for human use in any jurisdiction. Treatment decisions belong with a qualified healthcare provider. Nothing on this page is a recommendation to buy or not to buy anything; it is an account of what is known about what the money would be spent on.
Sources verified 16 September 2026. Regulatory status changes and a registered trial would change parts of this page. Re-verify before relying on anything here.