AOD-9604 is sold as a fat-loss peptide that works without the side effects of growth hormone. That claim has a real origin, and the origin is older and thinner than the marketing suggests. This page traces it back. It sits under the weight goal, where it is pitched.
What AOD-9604 is
Human growth hormone has a region near one end of the molecule associated with breaking down fat. AOD-9604 is that region on its own: the fragment running from amino acid 177 to 191, with an extra tyrosine attached at the front. The idea behind it is straightforward and appealing. Keep the part of the hormone that mobilizes fat, leave behind the parts that raise blood sugar and grow tissue.
The study it is sold on
The foundational result was published in 2000 [1]. Obese Zucker rats were given AOD-9604 by mouth at 500 micrograms per kilogram daily for 19 days. Treated animals gained 15.8 ± 0.6 g against 35.6 ± 0.8 g in controls: a 2.3-fold difference in weight put on over the period, which the authors describe as a reduction of more than 50%. Fat tissue from the treated animals showed increased lipolytic activity, and euglycemic clamp testing found no harm to insulin sensitivity, which intact growth hormone does cause.
That is a clean result and it is the reason anyone took the compound seriously. It is also a rodent study, published twenty-six years ago, measuring weight a rat did not gain rather than weight a person lost.
What happened to the drug program
AOD-9604 was developed as an obesity treatment by a pharmaceutical company, and a 2004 pipeline review records that phase IIa trials were underway by February 2002 [2]. What is missing is everything after that. No phase III result appears in the literature, and no study with AOD-9604 as an intervention is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov today.
Where the modern research actually lives
Searching the literature for AOD-9604 today returns mostly anti-doping work, and that is telling. A 2015 paper validated a method for detecting it in urine down to 50 picograms per milliliter, and identified six metabolites, one of them notably more stable than the rest [3]. The reason given for the work is stated plainly in its own abstract: the peptide is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency, it is available on several internet websites, and it had recently been identified in confiscated vials in the United States.
So the current scientific interest in this compound is largely about catching people using it, not about whether it helps them. A separate 2013 letter established that it does not interfere with the growth hormone test itself, which matters for how it is screened for. [4]
Where it stands with the FDA
AOD-9604 appears in neither the 503A bulk drug substances categories, updated May 14, 2026, nor the 503B categories, updated March 21, 2025. No pharmacy has a lawful route to compound it. It is separately banned in competitive sport, so an athlete buying it faces a second problem on top of the first.
For how that framework decides what a pharmacy may prepare, see what makes a peptide legal to prescribe. For the peptides actually sold for weight with prices attached, see peptides for weight loss. For the compounds that work on growth hormone rather than borrowing a piece of it, see growth hormone peptides and sermorelin against growth hormone itself.