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AOD-9604
This is one of the few grey-market peptides with a real, large, dedicated efficacy trial behind it — and that trial found it doesn't produce meaningful weight loss. That's a stronger and more specific negative finding than simply "no human data exists."
On this page
In brief
Should you care? Yes, specifically because this compound was actually tested properly, at scale — and failed. That's worth knowing before treating it the same as a compound nobody has bothered to study.The short version
- A real Phase 2b trial exists: 502 obese adults, 24 weeks, three doses, placebo-controlled.
- It didn't work. No dose reached statistical significance against placebo.
- The sponsor stopped the program after this result, in 2007.
What it is
AOD-9604 is a synthetic 16-amino-acid fragment of human growth hormone (residues 176-191, the region associated with hGH's fat-metabolizing effect), designed to isolate that effect without hGH's growth-promoting and blood-sugar effects. It was developed by Metabolic Pharmaceuticals, an Australian company.
What the trial evidence actually shows
Across six completed human trials involving roughly 900 participants, AOD-9604 showed a favorable safety profile — tolerability described as indistinguishable from placebo, with no effect on IGF-1 levels and no antibody formation (Stier, Vos & Kenley, "Safety and Tolerability of the Hexadecapeptide AOD9604 in Humans," J Endocrinol Metab 2013;3(1-2):7-15, DOI 10.4021/jem157w). An earlier, smaller 12-week trial had shown a modest weight-loss edge over placebo (2.6kg versus 0.8kg). But the definitive trial — a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 2b study in 536 obese adults over 24 weeks, at three dose levels — found no dose reached statistical significance against placebo. Metabolic Pharmaceuticals halted the obesity program in 2007 following this result.
Why this is a different kind of "D" than most
Most compounds on this site grade "D" because no proper human efficacy trial has ever been run. AOD-9604 is a genuinely different case: a dedicated, adequately sized efficacy program was completed, and it failed its primary endpoint. That's a stronger and more specific finding than "unstudied" — it's "studied properly, and didn't work" — which is exactly why it's worth stating clearly rather than lumping it in with compounds nobody has bothered to test.
References
- Stier, Vos & Kenley, "Safety and Tolerability of the Hexadecapeptide AOD9604 in Humans," J Endocrinol Metab 2013;3(1-2):7-15, DOI 10.4021/jem157w — covers the safety/tolerability compilation across six trials; the 536-participant Phase 2b efficacy result is reported via company disclosures and industry press coverage of the 2007 program discontinuation, not a peer-reviewed results paper we were able to locate, which is worth knowing about the strength of that specific citation.