CJC-1295

A growth-hormone-releasing hormone analogue that was engineered to last a week, tested in a few dozen healthy men, withdrawn after a death in its only patient trial, and then reinvented by the gray market under a name that covers at least five different molecules.

Summary

• CJC-1295 is a modified 29-amino-acid fragment of growth-hormone-releasing hormone with four substitutions to resist enzymatic breakdown. The version developed by ConjuChem carries an extra reactive group, the "drug affinity complex" or DAC, that binds it permanently to albumin in the blood.1

• In healthy adults a single injection raised growth hormone two- to ten-fold for six days or more and IGF-1 1.5- to three-fold for nine to eleven days. The estimated half-life was 5.8 to 8.1 days.2

• Growth hormone pulsatility was preserved under continuous stimulation, but trough levels rose 7.5-fold.3

• The only trial in patients, in HIV-associated visceral obesity, was halted in July 2006 after a participant died of a heart attack two hours after his eleventh weekly dose. The data were never published and development stopped.45

• Sixty-three people in total received the DAC compound in published studies. Fifty-five were men and forty-six received a single dose.6

• "CJC-1295 without DAC" or "Mod GRF 1-29", the form most often sold, has never been studied in a human being. Its first appearance in the literature is a vial seized by Norwegian customs in 2009.76

• In December 2024 the FDA's Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee voted unanimously against allowing pharmacies to compound any form of it, citing no evidence of effectiveness, injection-site necrosis in animals, and DNA damage in pituitary cells.86

• Prohibited in sport under WADA section S2, which names it.9

The Most Common Error About This Compound

Treating "CJC-1295" as one thing. The FDA counted at least five distinct substances and nine names in circulation under it.6 The human studies used the DAC version. The product most people buy, stacked with ipamorelin, is the version without DAC. They have different half-lives, different dosing logic, and different evidence bases, one of which is empty.

Identity

What Is CJC-1295?

Growth-hormone-releasing hormone, GHRH, is the hypothalamic signal that tells the pituitary to release growth hormone. Its first 29 amino acids carry the full activity, and an unmodified copy of that fragment, sermorelin, was once an approved drug. The problem with GHRH is that it is destroyed within minutes.

ConjuChem, a Montreal company, addressed that in two steps. It substituted four amino acids in the 29-residue fragment to resist the enzymes that cut it. It then added a maleimidopropionamide-lysine unit at the C-terminus, a reactive group that forms a permanent covalent bond with the free cysteine on serum albumin within minutes of injection. That is the "drug affinity complex." The result, published in 2005, stayed in rat plasma beyond 72 hours and was named CJC-1295.1

DAC or No DAC?

This distinction runs through every claim made about the compound.

The FDA's review is explicit that the human data belong to the DAC form, that "it is unclear which substance was used" even in those studies, and that it "was not able to identify studies in which CJC-1295 (free base)" or any other non-DAC form "were studied in humans."6

The community's argument for the non-DAC form is that its short action produces a cleaner growth hormone pulse. That is a pharmacological hypothesis about a molecule that has never been given to a person under observation. It may be right. Nobody has checked.

Evidence Base

What Did the Healthy-Volunteer Studies Show?

Two randomised, placebo-controlled, ascending-dose trials of 28 and 49 days, published together in 2006. A single subcutaneous injection produced dose-dependent increases in mean growth hormone of two- to ten-fold lasting six days or more, and in IGF-1 of 1.5- to three-fold lasting nine to eleven days. After repeated doses, IGF-1 stayed above baseline for up to 28 days. The authors reported no serious adverse reactions and judged the compound well tolerated, particularly at 30 or 60 micrograms per kilogram.2

A companion study sampled blood every 20 minutes overnight in healthy young men before and a week after a single 60 or 90 microgram per kilogram dose. Growth hormone pulses kept their frequency and size, but trough levels between pulses rose 7.5-fold, mean growth hormone rose 46 percent and IGF-1 rose 45 percent. The two doses did not differ.3

A third paper analysed serum proteins in eleven of those men and found changes in apolipoprotein A1, transthyretin and albumin fragments consistent with growth hormone action.10

That is the complete human efficacy literature: the compound raises growth hormone and IGF-1 in healthy people, mostly men, mostly after one dose. No study measured body composition, strength, fat, recovery, sleep or any outcome a buyer is paying for.

What Was the Patient Trial?

NCT00267527, a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 2 trial in HIV-associated visceral obesity, sponsored by ConjuChem, listed with 120 participants and terminated.5 Contemporary reporting put enrolment at 192 across sites in North and South America, with once-weekly injections escalating over three weeks to a low-dose or high-dose arm, then nine further weeks.4

The FDA's account, drawn from those reports: two hours after an eleventh weekly dose, one participant at an Argentine site complained of chest discomfort, an ECG confirmed an acute myocardial infarction, and he died about an hour later. The attending physician's most likely explanation was pre-existing asymptomatic coronary artery disease with plaque rupture. The study was terminated on 17 July 2006 and its data have never been published.64

A death attributed to underlying disease is not a finding that the drug caused it. It is also not a finding that it did not. The trial that could have distinguished those was the one that stopped. ConjuChem withdrew the compound from clinical development, and no company has developed it since.6

The competing GHRH analogue in the same indication, tesamorelin, completed its Phase 3 programme and was approved in 2010. That is the compound to read about for what a GHRH analogue actually does to visceral fat in patients; the ONPEPS tesamorelin entry covers it.

Is There Any Evidence for the Uses It Is Sold For?

No. The FDA evaluated the compound for growth hormone deficiency, the one indication a GHRH analogue could plausibly claim, and found "no studies evaluating effectiveness in humans" for any form. It noted that patients with complete deficiency cannot respond to a secretagogue at all, because the pituitary it stimulates does not work, and that multiple approved therapies exist.6

Muscle gain, fat loss, recovery, sleep and anti-ageing, the uses that drive sales, have not been studied at all. A 2016 analysis of women's forum discussions found the compound chosen for weight loss, muscle, skin, sleep and injury healing, with users well versed in polydrug use and uncertain how female growth hormone rhythms should change the dose.11 That study is a description of belief, not of effect.

Safety

What Is Known From Humans?

The FDA pooled the three healthy-volunteer studies. In the first trial, adverse events occurred in 33 of 35 people on drug against two of seven on placebo. Injection-site reactions affected about 70 percent, worse and longer at higher doses; transient hives at the injection site nearly 30 percent; headache 63 percent against 14 on placebo; diarrhoea 43 percent, reaching 100 percent at the highest dose; and systemic vasodilatory reactions, meaning flushing, warmth and transient low blood pressure, 30 percent. The pulsatility study reported a dose-dependent rise in heart rate.6

The agency's summary: some of these events "warrant further study, as they might inform how the substance should be administered and monitored in certain populations, such as those at risk for falls or those with heart disease," and compounded products carry no label to warn anyone.6 Its adverse event database held two reports through June 2024, neither assessable.

What Did the Animal Toxicology Show?

Two findings the marketing never mentions.

Repeated daily subcutaneous injection in rats and dogs produced injection-site haemorrhage, inflammation and necrosis at every dose tested, along with reduced red cell counts and, in dogs, vomiting and reduced activity at higher doses.6

And a 2020 study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, using a long-acting GHRH analogue identified in the FDA review as CJC-1295 DAC, found that it caused DNA damage in mouse pituitary cells in culture and, after eight weeks of injections, in the pituitaries of living mice, alongside enlargement of the anterior pituitary. The authors' interest was in how growth hormone hypersecretion might drive pituitary tumours.12 The FDA's conclusion was that with no carcinogenicity studies, "the potential for pituitary gland hyperplasia and tumors to develop in response to long-term" use is unaddressed.6

The mechanism by which the compound works, sustained stimulation of the somatotroph, is the mechanism that produced the DNA damage. That is not a side effect that a cleaner product would remove.

What Is Unknown

Everything past a few weeks. There is no human safety data beyond the 49-day trial, no data in women beyond eight participants, no data in anyone with a medical condition that survived to publication, and no data of any kind for the non-DAC form. The one long-exposure study in patients ended with a death and no dataset.

Sport and Drug Testing

Is CJC-1295 Prohibited?

Yes. WADA's Prohibited List names it under S2 as an example of a growth-hormone-releasing hormone analogue, alongside sermorelin and tesamorelin, prohibited at all times.9

Can It Be Detected?

Yes, and the methods have been refined specifically because it is used. A 2021 anti-doping study characterised nineteen metabolites of sermorelin, tesamorelin, CJC-1295 and CJC-1295 DAC and built a urine method reaching WADA's required detection limit of 1 nanogram per millilitre for most targets.13 The Norwegian laboratory that first characterised a seized vial in 2009 noted that the substance "is readily available, and there is reason to believe that it is being used within the bodybuilding community."7

Regulatory Status

Is It Approved Anywhere?

No. No form of CJC-1295 is approved by any regulator, and the FDA found no monograph in the United States, European, Japanese or other pharmacopoeias it searched.6

What Happened in December 2024?

On 4 December 2024 the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee considered five CJC-1295 substances for the 503A bulks list, which would have allowed pharmacies to compound them on prescription. The FDA proposed against all five: two of the three DAC salts were not well characterised, no effectiveness data existed for any use, and the nonclinical record raised injection-site and genotoxicity concerns.6

The committee voted 0 to 13 against the free base and each DAC form and 1 to 12 against the acetate. The one recorded comment was on the lack of evidence for effectiveness.8 Speakers supporting the nomination were compounding-sector companies and their counsel; one presentation argued from 449,184 dispensed prescriptions that the compound was well tolerated, a claim the committee did not accept as evidence.148

Since September 2023 the compound has sat in the FDA's Category 2 of nominated substances that may present significant safety risks, with the stated concerns of immunogenicity and "serious adverse events associated with CJC-1295 including increased heart rate and systemic vasodilatory reaction." As of April 2026 it appears among substances nominated but withdrawn, with that text unchanged.15 It was not among the peptides considered in July 2026.

Has It Ever Been Lawfully Compounded?

Briefly, and it ended in prosecution. The FDA's review cites a press release from the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky describing a pharmacy that compounded and distributed CJC-1295 products from October 2018 to April 2020, and notes one outsourcing facility reported compounding it in 2019 and 2020 and none since.6 Several websites now state the compound is "no longer available" from pharmacies, which is a description of the gray market's origin rather than of the gray market.

Related ONPEPS Coverage

• CJC-1295 sourcing and quality: five molecules, nine names and no reference product

• CJC-1295 cost and access: what a stack price hides

• Ipamorelin: the other half of the stack, graded separately

• Tesamorelin: the GHRH analogue that finished its trials

• FDA peptide news July 2026: the compounding advisory process explained

What Would Change This Page

Publication of the 2006 trial data, which exist. Any human study of the non-DAC form, which would be the first. A carcinogenicity study, which the FDA identified as the missing piece behind the pituitary DNA damage finding. None of these is registered or announced.

References

1. Jetté L, Léger R, Thibaudeau K, Benquet C, Robitaille M, Pellerin I, et al. Human growth hormone-releasing factor (hGRF)1-29-albumin bioconjugates activate the GRF receptor on the anterior pituitary in rats: identification of CJC-1295 as a long-lasting GRF analog. Endocrinology. 2005;146(7):3052-3058. Open access. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15817669

2. Teichman SL, Neale A, Lawrence B, Gagnon C, Castaigne JP, Frohman LA. Prolonged stimulation of growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor I secretion by CJC-1295, a long-acting analog of GH-releasing hormone, in healthy adults. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2006;91(3):799-805. Open access. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16352683

3. Ionescu M, Frohman LA. Pulsatile secretion of growth hormone (GH) persists during continuous stimulation by CJC-1295, a long-acting GH-releasing hormone analog. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2006;91(12):4792-4797. Open access. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17018654

4. Bernard EJ. Lipodystrophy study halted after patient death. aidsmap. 31 July 2006. News report; the FDA's 2024 review relies on it for the trial description. aidsmap.com

5. ClinicalTrials.gov. NCT00267527. A Study to Evaluate CJC 1295 in HIV Patients With Visceral Obesity. Sponsor ConjuChem. Phase 2, terminated, no results posted. Record retrieved 16 September 2026. clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT00267527

6. US Food and Drug Administration. CJC-1295-related bulk drug substances: FDA review for the December 4, 2024 meeting of the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee. Docket FDA-2024-N-4777. Primary source for the substance count, the pooled human safety data, the animal toxicology, the Kentucky prosecution and the effectiveness conclusion. fda.gov

7. Henninge J, Pepaj M, Hullstein I, Hemmersbach P. Identification of CJC-1295, a growth-hormone-releasing peptide, in an unknown pharmaceutical preparation. Drug Test Anal. 2010;2(11-12):647-650. Paywalled. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21204297

8. US Food and Drug Administration. Final Summary Minutes of the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee Meeting, December 4, 2024. Approved 21 February 2025. fda.gov

9. World Anti-Doping Agency. The Prohibited List, section S2, Peptide hormones, growth factors, related substances and mimetics. Current edition. wada-ama.org

10. Sackmann-Sala L, Ding J, Frohman LA, Kopchick JJ. Activation of the GH/IGF-1 axis by CJC-1295, a long-acting GHRH analog, results in serum protein profile changes in normal adult subjects. Growth Horm IGF Res. 2009;19(6):471-477. Paywalled. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19386527

11. Van Hout MC, Hearne E. Netnography of female use of the synthetic growth hormone CJC-1295: pulses and potions. Subst Use Misuse. 2016;51(1):73-84. Paywalled. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26771670

12. Ben-Shlomo A, Deng N, Ding E, Yamamoto M, Mamelak A, Chesnokova V, et al. DNA damage and growth hormone hypersecretion in pituitary somatotroph adenomas. J Clin Invest. 2020;130(11):5738-5755. Open access. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32673291

13. Memdouh S, Gavrilović I, Ng K, Cowan D, Abbate V. Advances in the detection of growth hormone releasing hormone synthetic analogs. Drug Test Anal. 2021;13(11-12):1871-1887. Open access. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34665524

14. Rosebush L. FDA Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee: CJC-1295 Acetate. Open public hearing presentation on behalf of nominators, docket FDA-2024-N-4777, December 2024. Industry submission, not an FDA document. regulations.gov

15. 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 CJC-1295. Content current as of 22 April 2026. fda.gov

Not Medical Advice

No form of CJC-1295 is approved for human use in any jurisdiction, no human dose has been established for any outcome other than raising growth hormone in healthy men, and it is prohibited in sport under WADA section S2. Consult a qualified healthcare provider before acting on anything here.

Evidence counts on the library index retrieved 23 July 2026. Literature and regulatory sources verified 16 September 2026. Re-verify before relying on any regulatory statement here.