# AOD-9604

> Source: https://peptidestogo.com/peptides/aod-9604/
> Last updated August 23, 2026 · PeptidesToGo Editorial Team · Educational, not medical advice

hGH(176–191) fragment

**Status:** Not FDA-approved · no US pharmacy route

**How it is delivered:** Injection · Oral — no lawful US route to a dose.

The name is literal. AOD-9604 stands for Anti-Obesity Drug 9604, and the molecule is a 16-amino-acid piece of human growth hormone — residues 176 to 191, the tail end of the protein, with a tyrosine added to the front to stabilize it.

The design idea was subtraction. Full hGH does a great many things at once, and the ones that make it a difficult drug are the ones nobody wanting fat loss is asking for: tissue growth, rising IGF-1, worsening insulin sensitivity. Those effects come from parts of the molecule this fragment leaves behind. On that count the design worked. AOD-9604 does not bind the growth-hormone receptor, does not raise IGF-1, and does not degrade glucose tolerance.

What it does instead runs through beta-3 adrenergic receptors on fat cells. Activate those and you get the standard lipolytic cascade — cAMP rises, hormone-sensitive lipase switches on, stored triglycerides break down into fatty acids for oxidation. The fragment appears to increase beta-3 receptor expression, most noticeably in obese tissue where those receptors are otherwise suppressed, and to inhibit lipogenesis on the other side of the ledger. More breakdown, less storage, no growth-hormone baggage.

> The mechanism did what it was designed to do. The trial built to detect an effect could not find one.

That is the whole story of AOD-9604, and it is why the compound is interesting to read about and not something we can point you at. An early Phase 2 at 1 mg orally reported about 2.6 to 2.8 kg of weight loss over 12 weeks against 0.8 kg on placebo. Then the adequately powered 24-week Phase 2b found no separation from placebo whatsoever. The development program stopped there. For the study-by-study record and the pharmacology in full, read the deep-dive on PeptideWellness.

Last updated August 23, 2026 · PeptidesToGo Editorial Team ·
[Educational, not medical advice](https://peptidestogo.com/legal/medical-disclaimer/)

## Who it's for (or who should avoid)

### What it's aimed at

There is no patient group, because there is no route and no established effect. What the research aimed at:

- **Obesity, in the trials** — roughly 925 participants across the program, measured on body weight over 12 to 24 weeks
- **The specific case for a GH fragment** — someone who wants hGH’s lipolytic effect without the IGF-1 and glucose consequences, which is a coherent thing to want and the reason this molecule exists
- **Cartilage repair, in rabbits** — a separate Lateral Pharma program, disclosed in 2013, using injection directly into the joint
- **Food-ingredient use** — the self-affirmed GRAS status from 2012 sits in that framework and nowhere near a therapeutic claim

The list contains no approved indication and no successful adequately powered trial. Anything written about what it does for body composition in practice is extrapolation from a 12-week result that a longer study failed to reproduce.

### Who should avoid it

- Anyone with kidney or liver disease — the FDA’s passive database carries chronic kidney disease reports, and while passive reports establish nothing, this is the wrong compound to test the question on
- Anyone with an active or recent cancer diagnosis — the fragment’s metabolic activity has never been studied in an oncology context
- Anyone pregnant, breastfeeding or planning a pregnancy — no controlled human data of any kind
- Anyone buying a research-chemical vial, which is the only form actually available in the US: unverified identity, unverified potency, unverified sterility, and a substance nobody is authorized to prepare for injection

## Route, dose and course

**Used for:** Fat loss — in trials that ended without an effect

**How it’s taken:** Not published — There is no lawful US route to a dose. It is not FDA-approved, it is on neither compounding list, and no provider we cover carries it. The trials used 1 mg by mouth; what circulates outside them is 300 mcg injected daily.

**What it is:** A 16-amino-acid fragment of human growth hormone — residues 176 to 191, the tail of the molecule, with a tyrosine added to the front. The name is literal: Anti-Obesity Drug 9604.

**What the design leaves out:** It does not bind the growth-hormone receptor, does not raise IGF-1, and does not worsen glucose tolerance — the three things that make full hGH a difficult drug. That part of the design held up.

**What the trials showed:** An early 12-week Phase 2 reported about 2.6–2.8 kg of weight loss against 0.8 kg on placebo. The adequately powered 24-week Phase 2b that followed could not separate from placebo at all.

**What it costs:** Not published — Nothing to quote. No approved product, no compounding route, and no provider we cover sells it.

There is no lawful US route to a dose, and that is the fact this section exists to state.

The regulatory position is unusually clean for a compound in this category, in that every door is closed rather than ajar:

- **No approved product** — not FDA-approved for any indication, so there is no label and nothing to prescribe off
- **No 503B route** — not on the Bulks List, so an outsourcing facility cannot make it
- **No 503A route** — its nominations were withdrawn in 2024, and on the FDA’s May 14, 2026 list it appears in no current category, so a compounding pharmacy has no authorization either
- **GRAS is not approval** — the June 2012 self-affirmation is a food-additive judgment about eating something, not a drug authorization

For the record, the trials that produced the positive signal used 1 mg by mouth, and the protocol that circulates outside them is 300 mcg injected subcutaneously each day on 12-week cycles. Those two do not match each other, and neither has a supply chain we would send anyone to.

## The usual arc

**Read this first.** These are trial windows, not a protocol — there is no lawful route to a dose, so there is no course to run. The honest thing the timeline shows is that the compound looked better at twelve weeks in a small study than it did at twenty-four in a larger one, which is the opposite of how a real effect usually behaves.

The windows below are trial endpoints rather than a course, because there is no course to run. What they show is a compound that looked better in the smaller, shorter study than in the larger, longer one — and that is the shape of a signal that was not there.

**WEEK 12 Where the good result ended** The early Phase 2 stopped here and reported about 2.6–2.8 kg of weight loss against 0.8 kg on placebo, at 1 mg by mouth. Small study, short window, and the strongest number this compound has ever produced.

**WEEK 24 Where the better study ended** The Phase 2b ran twice as long with enough patients to detect an effect, and found none — no separation from placebo. Same molecule, more people, longer look, nothing there.

**AFTER No maintenance question** Nothing was followed past the endpoints, because there was nothing to follow. The development program did not continue into Phase 3, and no later trial has revisited the question.

## No provider we've verified carries AOD-9604 yet

That is the honest answer, and it is not the same as "you can't have it". None of the
 licensed telehealth providers we track publishes AOD-9604, so there is
 no price to quote and no intake to send you to. Whether that changes depends on federal action rather than on us — which is why the next box
 exists rather than a button that goes nowhere.

### Tell me when someone carries it

### In the meantime

- [Peptides you can get today for the same goal](https://peptidestogo.com/tools/provider-match/)
- [Everything in Weight Loss](https://peptidestogo.com/peptides/weight-loss/)

## Questions we get about AOD-9604

### Is AOD-9604 FDA-approved?

No, and it never got close. It was tested in several human obesity trials — roughly 925 participants across the program — and the adequately powered one failed. There is no approved label for it, which also means there is nothing for a clinician to prescribe it off. It does hold self-affirmed GRAS status from June 2012, and that is worth being precise about: GRAS is a food-additive framework covering whether an ingredient is safe to eat. It is not a drug approval, it authorizes no therapeutic claim, and it is frequently quoted as though it were the former.

### Can I get it prescribed?

Not through any route we would send you to. It is not FDA-approved, so there is no label. It is not on the 503B Bulks List, so an outsourcing facility cannot make it. And as of the FDA's May 14, 2026 list it sits on no current 503A category either — its nominations were withdrawn in 2024 — so a compounding pharmacy has no authorization to prepare it from bulk. What that leaves is research-chemical vials sold online with no verified identity, potency or sterility, which is not a supply route for something you intend to inject.

### What did the trials actually show?

Two things that point in opposite directions. An early Phase 2 at 1 mg orally reported about 2.6 to 2.8 kg of weight loss over 12 weeks against 0.8 kg on placebo — a real if modest separation. Then the adequately powered Phase 2b ran 24 weeks and could not separate from placebo at all. There is also an oddity in the first result worth knowing: the dose-response curve was inverted, with 1 mg outperforming higher doses. A drug whose effect does not grow with the dose, and then disappears in the larger trial, is usually telling you the first signal was noise.

### Is it safe?

In the trials, yes, as far as they went: side effects were mild and comparable to placebo across roughly 925 participants, with no serious adverse events. Two caveats matter more than that sentence. The FDA's passive adverse-event database carries reports of chronic kidney disease and "drug ineffective" entries — uncontrolled reports that cannot establish causation, but are on the record. And trial safety is safety of a known compound at a known dose from a known manufacturer, which describes nothing you can currently buy.

### What about the joint-repair research?

That is a separate program and a separate claim. A rabbit osteoarthritis model, disclosed by Lateral Pharma in February 2013, showed cartilage repair after injection directly into the joint. It is an interesting result and it is a rabbit, given an intra-articular injection, for a condition that has nothing to do with fat loss. It does not transfer to a person injecting subcutaneously for weight loss, and the two lines of research are routinely blended together in copy that sells the compound.

### How much does it cost?

There is no price to quote. No provider we cover carries it, no pharmacy is authorized to compound it, and no approved product exists, so nobody publishes a figure. Prices you will find attached to it belong to research-chemical suppliers selling an unverified powder, and comparing those to a telehealth subscription is comparing two different kinds of transaction.

We publish no medical reviewer by design. Every claim on this page traces to a
 source we hold on file, and the reviewed write-up with those citations lives on our
 hub.
[Read the full research on PeptideWellness ↗](https://peptidewellnessusa.com/peptides/aod-9604/)

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