{"entity":{"id":"rejuv-frontier-unlicensed-peptides","kind":"technology","name":"Unlicensed peptides sold for recovery","aka":[],"tldr":"BPC-157, ipamorelin, thymosin, CJC-1295 and the rest are sold online and by clinics for healing, energy and recovery after treatment. The FDA has placed several of them on the list of substances that may present significant safety risks in compounding, and names immunogenicity, impurities and, for some, deaths in studies.","summary":"These are synthetic peptides sold as injectables or nasal sprays, usually without a prescription from a licensed supply chain, and marketed for tissue repair, growth hormone release, immune function and recovery. The FDA maintains a list of bulk drug substances nominated for compounding that it has placed in category 2, meaning they may present significant safety risks. Several growth hormone secretagogue peptides are on it. For growth hormone releasing peptide-2 the FDA cites risk of immunogenicity from aggregation and peptide-related impurities, an unnatural amino acid that complicates characterisation, and awareness of reports of serious adverse events including increased insulin requirement, death of critically ill study subjects, infection and pancreatitis, with causality not established. For growth hormone releasing peptide-6 it cites immunogenicity risk and effects on cortisol and insulin sensitivity. For ipamorelin acetate it cites immunogenicity risk, unnatural amino acids, and a published study identifying serious adverse events including death when ipamorelin was given intravenously for gastric motility. Ibutamoren mesylate is listed for potential congestive heart failure, citing a randomised placebo-controlled trial in hip fracture recovery terminated early for a congestive heart failure safety signal. Kisspeptin-10 is listed because the agency has little or no safety information for the proposed routes.\n\nBPC-157 was nominated for compounding and the nomination was withdrawn. The FDA's stated concern is that compounded drugs containing it \"may pose risk for immunogenicity for certain routes of administration and may have complexities with regard to peptide-related impurities and active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) characterization\", that it has identified no or only limited safety information for the proposed routes, and that it therefore lacks sufficient information to know whether the drug would cause harm in humans.\n\nIn the UK these are unlicensed medicines; supplying a prescription-only medicine without a prescription, and advertising one to the public, are both offences. There is no randomised trial of any of these peptides in cancer survivors.","status":"preclinical","asOf":"2026-10-02","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_hormone_secretagogue","links":[{"label":"FDA: Certain bulk drug substances for use in compounding that may present significant safety risks (category 2)","url":"https://www.fda.gov/drugs/human-drug-compounding/certain-bulk-drug-substances-use-compounding-may-present-significant-safety-risks"}],"tags":["rejuvenation","survivorship","evidence:harm","unproven","regulator-warning"],"related":[],"cancers":[],"sections":["rejuvenation","supportive-care"],"technologies":["alternative-medicine-instead-of-treatment"],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":["b-survivorship"],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"principle":"The growth hormone secretagogues act on the ghrelin receptor to raise pulsatile growth hormone; BPC-157 is a fragment of a gastric protein with angiogenic effects in rodents. Raising growth hormone and IGF-1 after a cancer diagnosis is a step nobody has tested for safety in that population, which is the part the marketing does not mention.","strengths":["Some of the receptor pharmacology is well characterised in animals"],"limitations":["Several are on the FDA list of bulk substances that may present significant safety risks","FDA cites immunogenicity, impurity and characterisation problems, and for some substances deaths in studies","No randomised trial in cancer survivors for any claimed use","Unlicensed supply with no assurance of identity, purity or sterility","Raising growth hormone and IGF-1 after cancer has not been tested for safety"]},"route":"/technologies/rejuv-frontier-unlicensed-peptides/","neighbours":{"section":[{"id":"rejuvenation","kind":"section","name":"Recovery & Rejuvenation","route":"/fronts/rejuvenation/"},{"id":"supportive-care","kind":"section","name":"Supportive Care & Survivorship","route":"/fronts/supportive-care/"}],"technology":[{"id":"alternative-medicine-instead-of-treatment","kind":"technology","name":"Alternative medicine used instead of standard treatment","route":"/technologies/alternative-medicine-instead-of-treatment/"},{"id":"rejuv-frontier-what-works","kind":"technology","name":"What actually works after treatment","route":"/technologies/rejuv-frontier-what-works/"}],"bottleneck":[{"id":"b-survivorship","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Survivorship and late effects are neglected","route":"/bottlenecks/b-survivorship/"}]}}