Has AOD-9604 been tested in humans?

It entered commercial development for obesity, and no randomised controlled trial establishing efficacy in humans has been published. That is the most important thing to know about it.

Is AOD-9604 the same as growth hormone?

No. It is a 16-residue fragment of it, and the point of the fragment is that it does not do what the full hormone does — no growth promotion and no insulin-related effects in the rodent work.

Is AOD-9604 approved anywhere?

No. It is supplied here as a laboratory reagent for in-vitro research and not for human or veterinary use.

Research guides

AOD-9604 (hGH 176-191): what the research says

A growth hormone fragment designed to keep the fat-metabolism activity and drop the rest. The rodent work, and what happened to the clinical programme.

Available in the catalogue

Supplied as research material. Sizes and pricing are on the product page. Availability is not a statement about what a compound does.

AOD-9604
Metabolic & GLP-1

AOD-9604 is a fragment-separation story of the same kind as KPV and ARA-290: take a hormone with several activities, cut it down, and keep one. In this case the preclinical separation worked and the clinical development did not follow.

What the molecule is

A synthetic peptide corresponding to residues 176–191 of human growth hormone — the C-terminal fragment associated with its effects on fat metabolism. It appears in the older literature under several fragment designations, and the closely related AOD9401 appears alongside it in the founding work.

What the fragment turned out not to need

The interesting finding in the published work is a negative one. In rodent studies the fragment's effect on fat metabolism persisted without requiring the intact growth hormone receptor pathway, and it did not produce the growth-promoting or insulin-related effects of the full hormone.

That separation of lipolytic activity from the rest of growth hormone's actions is the reason the fragment was investigated at all. Growth hormone itself affects glucose handling and promotes growth in tissue generally, and both are reasons not to use it to study fat metabolism.

Where the evidence stops

The published record is rodent and in-vitro work from the 1990s and 2000s: antilipogenic activity of the C-terminal sequence, effects on lipid metabolism in Zucker fatty rats, and comparisons of the fragment against the full hormone. The compound went into commercial development for obesity and the programme did not produce a published randomised trial establishing efficacy in humans.

A development programme ending without a published positive trial is a weak signal rather than a definitive negative — programmes stop for funding, strategy and regulatory reasons as well as for efficacy. But an absence of published human efficacy data after a real commercial attempt is more informative than an absence in a compound nobody ever developed.

What studies reported

Each entry states what a study examined and the model it used. Nothing below describes an outcome for a person.

Everything below is drawn from published research, and each entry names the model the study used. Approval status varies by compound and by country, and nothing described here is supplied as a medicine or for use in a person.

Wu et al. (1993)Biochemistry and Molecular Biology International · 30(1):187–96
Reported antilipogenic action of the synthetic C-terminal sequence 177–191 of human growth hormone.
in vitro Source
Ng et al. (2000)Journal of Molecular Endocrinology · 25(3):287–98
Examined the molecular and cellular actions of a structural domain of human growth hormone on lipid metabolism in a genetic rodent obesity model.
Zucker fatty rats Source
Heffernan et al. (2000)American Journal of Physiology: Endocrinology and Metabolism · 279(3):E501–7
Reported effects of a synthetic fragment of human growth hormone on lipid metabolism, examining how the fragment's activity compares with that of the intact hormone.
rodent Source

Adverse and null findings reported

No dedicated safety study has been published for this compound. That is not a finding that none exists — it means the question has not been asked in print, and the gaps below say so.

What the research does not establish

An absence cannot be cited, so these are stated plainly. They are the part of the picture that silence would otherwise hide.

The `adverse` list is empty because no toxicology or safety publication specific to this fragment was found, not because it has been examined and found benign.
No published randomised controlled trial establishes efficacy in humans for any indication, despite a commercial development programme having existed. That combination — a real programme, no published positive trial — is the central fact about this compound.
It holds no marketing authorisation in any jurisdiction.
The rodent work is twenty-five to thirty years old and was designed to answer a mechanism question about growth hormone rather than a therapeutic one about the fragment.
The separation of lipolytic activity from growth-promoting and insulin-related activity is established in rodents. Whether it holds in humans has not been demonstrated in published work.
Nothing published addresses long-term administration in any species.

Common questions

What is AOD-9604?: A synthetic peptide corresponding to residues 176–191 of human growth hormone — the C-terminal fragment associated with its effects on fat metabolism, separated from the rest of the hormone's activities.
What did the research find?: In rodents, the fragment's effect on fat metabolism persisted without requiring the intact growth hormone receptor pathway, and it did not produce the growth-promoting or insulin-related effects of the full hormone. Those are findings in rats and in vitro.
Has AOD-9604 been tested in humans?: It entered commercial development for obesity, and no randomised controlled trial establishing efficacy in humans has been published. That is the most important thing to know about it.
Is AOD-9604 the same as growth hormone?: No. It is a 16-residue fragment of it, and the point of the fragment is that it does not do what the full hormone does — no growth promotion and no insulin-related effects in the rodent work.
Is AOD-9604 approved anywhere?: No. It is supplied here as a laboratory reagent for in-vitro research and not for human or veterinary use.

Compounds covered

The reference page for each compound this article discusses.

AOD-9604

MOTS-c: what the research says
A peptide encoded in mitochondrial rather than nuclear DNA, whose discovery mattered more than the molecule. The founding mouse work, and the ten years since.
IGF-1 LR3 (Long R3 IGF-1): what the research says
An analogue engineered to evade the binding proteins that regulate natural IGF-1 — which is exactly why it is a cell-culture reagent, and why that matters.
How to store research peptides
Lyophilised peptides at -20°C, reconstituted at 2–8°C, ambient in transit. Why the dry cake tolerates shipping, and what actually degrades a vial.

About this article

Everything reported here comes from published research, and each finding names the model the study used — cell culture, rat, or human. Findings in one model do not transfer to another, most of the work described is preclinical, and none of it is a claim that a compound is safe or effective for any purpose. Nothing on this page describes doses, routes of administration, or use in a person.

Approval status varies by compound and by country. A few of the substances described are the active ingredient of medicines authorised in the EU; most have no marketing authorisation anywhere and have never been assessed by a regulator. Neither is supplied as a medicine here. All material supplied by ASSAY is sold for in-vitro laboratory research only, and is not a drug, food, cosmetic or medical device, and not for human or veterinary use.

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