CJC-1295 / Ipamorelin / Sermorelin: What It Is, Where to Get It Prescribed, and What It Costs

This is not a single molecule. It is three separately studied peptides dissolved together in one sterile 3 mL cartridge by a compounding pharmacy: 1.5 mg CJC-1295, 6 mg ipamorelin and 6 mg sermorelin, 13.5 mg in total. None of the three is growth hormone. Each is a signal that asks the pituitary to release the growth hormone it already makes, in the pulsed pattern it always has — CJC-1295 and sermorelin through the growth-hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH) receptor, ipamorelin through the ghrelin receptor. Ipamorelin and sermorelin are present in equal amounts; CJC-1295 is one-ninth of the total. The ratio is fixed by the formulation and cannot be adjusted per component. The name describes the contents and appears in no journal: the combination has never been studied as a combination, so "does it work" is three questions.

Sermorelin is the oldest and the best documented: the first 29 amino acids of the body's own GHRH, the shortest fragment that keeps the full activity of the 44-amino-acid original. As Geref it was an FDA-approved drug from 1990 to 2009, first as a diagnostic test of pituitary function and then as a treatment for growth hormone deficiency in children, and was discontinued for commercial reasons, not for any safety or effectiveness problem.

CJC-1295 is sermorelin with four amino-acid substitutions that protect it from the enzyme DPP-IV, which otherwise clears GHRH from the blood in minutes. The version in compounded blends, including this one, is the form without the "drug affinity complex" (DAC) tag, also called modified GRF (1-29); the DAC form used in the 2006 human trials binds to albumin and circulates for about a week.

Ipamorelin is a five-amino-acid peptide developed by Novo Nordisk in the 1990s, from a different class: the growth hormone releasing peptides, which mimic ghrelin. The 1998 paper in the European Journal of Endocrinology that characterised it called it "the first selective growth hormone secretagogue," because in animals it released growth hormone without meaningfully raising cortisol, ACTH or prolactin.

It is not growth hormone and contains none, and it is not a substitute for growth hormone therapy in a diagnosed deficiency, which is a separate, FDA-approved treatment. If the pituitary cannot respond, these peptides do nothing — which is why sermorelin worked as a diagnostic test. It is not an anabolic steroid and does not suppress testosterone. It is not a weight-loss medication: ipamorelin's receptor is the one ghrelin uses to signal hunger. And it is not fast.

Somatotrophs, the pituitary cells that make and store growth hormone, carry a GHRH receptor. Sermorelin binds it, raises cyclic AMP inside the cell and triggers release of stored hormone. In a 1997 trial in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, a nightly subcutaneous dose of a GHRH(1-29) analogue in older adults raised growth hormone within ten minutes, for about two hours: a pulse followed by a return to baseline, not a plateau.

CJC-1295 acts at the same receptor; its substitutions resist DPP-IV, so the no-DAC form lasts roughly half an hour rather than minutes. In a 2006 study in the American Journal of Physiology, once-daily CJC-1295 normalised growth in mice engineered to lack GHRH entirely. In healthy adults given the DAC form and sampled every ten minutes (Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2006), the pituitary's pulsatile pattern was preserved: more hormone per pulse rather than a flat elevation.

Ipamorelin binds the growth hormone secretagogue receptor, GHS-R1a, the receptor ghrelin uses; the 1998 characterisation used receptor antagonists to show it acts there and not at the GHRH receptor. Activation triggers release from the pituitary directly and, at the hypothalamus, reduces somatostatin, the brake signal. In human volunteers given intravenous ipamorelin (Pharmaceutical Research, 1999), a single sharp episode of growth hormone release peaked at about forty minutes. Its selectivity — no cortisol or prolactin rise of the kind GHRP-2 and GHRP-6 produce — was measured in animals; the human study measured growth hormone only.

The pituitary listens to two inputs: GHRH from the hypothalamus, and ghrelin-type signals from the gut. They act through different receptors on the same cell, and one also lifts the somatostatin brake, so since the early 1990s the two classes have been described as more than additive when given together. That is the logic of every GHRH-plus-GHRP blend on this site: one component supplies the GHRH signal, ipamorelin the ghrelin signal, and both converge on one pulse, timed at bedtime to line up with the body's own largest nocturnal pulse.

Why carry both sermorelin and CJC-1295 when both act on the same receptor? The rationale prescribers give is duration: a brief, native-shaped signal from sermorelin and a longer one from CJC-1295, for a sharper onset with a longer tail. It is a rationale, not a finding; no study has compared the three-peptide combination with the two-peptide one.

Whichever signal releases it, growth hormone acts mostly by prompting the liver to make insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), and because the pituitary is still doing the releasing, the body's feedback — somatostatin, and IGF-1 itself — stays intact. That is why a secretagogue is described as self-limiting in a way injected growth hormone is not, and why IGF-1, with fasting glucose alongside it because growth hormone opposes insulin, is what a physician tracks.

This is the strongest evidence for any component, and the population was children. The Geref International Study Group trial (Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 1996) gave 110 previously untreated prepubertal children once-daily bedtime GHRH(1-29) for up to a year: mean height velocity roughly doubled over the first six months, bone age advanced in proportion to height, fasting glucose did not change and the drug was reported as well tolerated. A 1999 review in BioDrugs summarised the programme: growth in most children with idiopathic deficiency, though somewhat less than recombinant growth hormone produced.

A National Institute on Aging study (Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 1992) gave GHRH(1-29) twice daily to healthy men in their late sixties for fourteen days and reported growth hormone and IGF-1 rising to levels no longer significantly different from men in their twenties. A six-week study of single nightly injections in men aged 64 to 76 (Metabolism, 1997) reported higher nocturnal growth hormone but no change in IGF-1 or body composition. The longest, a sixteen-week randomised placebo-controlled trial in nineteen adults aged 55 to 71 (Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 1997), reported IGF-1 rising within two weeks, holding for twelve, then drifting back toward baseline. These are endocrine endpoints, not reports of people feeling or performing differently.

The 2006 trial in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism gave healthy adults the DAC form of CJC-1295 and reported dose-dependent rises in growth hormone and IGF-1 persisting for days, described as well tolerated; a companion paper reported the pulsatile pattern preserved. Both used the long-acting form, not the daily-dosed form in this cartridge. For ipamorelin, the 1999 dose-escalation study in healthy male volunteers confirmed dose-proportional growth hormone release by the intravenous route and measured nothing else, and a 2014 randomised, placebo-controlled phase 2 trial in the International Journal of Colorectal Disease of intravenous ipamorelin in 114 bowel-resection patients, for post-operative ileus, did not separate from placebo. There are no human data for the subcutaneous route.

The sleep rationale is physiological. The largest growth hormone pulse of the day occurs during slow-wave sleep, and a 2000 study in JAMA found slow-wave sleep and growth hormone secretion declining together in healthy men from early adulthood. Prescribers reason from that, and patients frequently report deeper sleep; no published trial of any of the three components has sleep quality as an endpoint. For body composition, the human sermorelin trials that measured it were short and found no change. Ipamorelin's evidence is rat bone studies (Growth Hormone and IGF Research, 1999; Journal of Endocrinology, 2000) and a 2001 mouse study in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications in which secretagogues increased fat and food intake. Nothing here is a body-composition result in adults.

Stated precisely: there are no randomised controlled trials of the CJC-1295 / Ipamorelin / Sermorelin blend in humans, and no study of any kind has examined the three together. The evidence is per component, and it is uneven:

• Sermorelin has randomised and controlled human trials, in children with growth hormone deficiency and in small groups of healthy older adults, with height velocity and hormone levels as endpoints, plus an adverse-event record collected while it was an approved drug.
• CJC-1295 has the 2006 healthy-adult trials of the DAC form, which measured growth hormone and IGF-1.
• Ipamorelin has one pharmacokinetic study in healthy volunteers and one phase 2 surgical trial that did not meet its endpoints, both intravenous.

Each shows its peptide raises measured growth hormone in people; none measured sleep, recovery or body composition in the adults typically prescribed the blend. Much of medicine rests on mechanism plus clinical experience, and that is the basis physicians prescribe it on. The honest framing is "known to raise growth hormone and IGF-1 in humans; benefits beyond that are inferred from physiology and clinical experience," not "proven for sleep or body composition."

• That three peptides together do more than two, or than one. No study has compared the blend with its components.
• That the blend improves sleep, recovery or body composition; those outcomes have not been measured in a trial.
• An effect size or a timeline. Timelines below are prescriber experience.
• Long-term safety with continuous use over years; the longest adult sermorelin trial ran sixteen weeks.
• Efficacy for any condition as an FDA-approved treatment. No component is currently approved for anything.

Sermorelin acetate was the active ingredient of Geref, held by EMD Serono: the diagnostic presentation (NDA 19-863) approved on 28 December 1990, the treatment presentation for growth hormone deficiency in children (NDA 20-443) on 26 September 1997. In 2008 EMD Serono told the FDA both were being discontinued and asked for the applications to be withdrawn; the FDA withdrew approval effective 18 June 2009. On 4 March 2013, in response to a citizen petition, the FDA published a determination in the Federal Register that both Geref products "were not withdrawn from sale for reasons of safety or effectiveness," having reviewed its own records and the post-marketing adverse-event data. No generic has come to market.

Sermorelin does not appear in Category 1, 2 or 3 of the FDA's interim 503A bulk drug substances list, updated 14 May 2026, and it was on neither the April 2026 removal list nor the July 2026 advisory committee agenda. Its footing for compounding is its history as the active ingredient of an approved drug whose withdrawal the FDA itself determined was not for safety or effectiveness.

CJC-1295 was placed in Category 2 of the 503A list — the category for substances flagged as raising significant safety risks — in 2023. In September 2024 its nomination was withdrawn and the FDA referred it to the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee instead. On 4 December 2024 the committee considered the whole CJC-1295 family, evaluated for growth hormone deficiency, and voted 0–13 against adding CJC-1295 (free base) to the 503A Bulks List, 1–12 against the acetate, and 0–13 against each of the three DAC forms. The FDA's safety-risk page, current as of 22 April 2026, lists CJC-1295 under "nominated but withdrawn," citing an immunogenicity risk common to injectable peptides, characterisation complexity, limited clinical data, and reported adverse events of increased heart rate and a systemic vasodilatory reaction.

Ipamorelin acetate was placed in Category 2 on 29 September 2023 under both the 503A and the 503B interim policies. Its 503A nomination was withdrawn in September 2024, and on 29 October 2024 the advisory committee, evaluating it for growth hormone deficiency and post-operative ileus, voted 0 yes, 12 no, 1 abstain against both ipamorelin (free base) and ipamorelin acetate, citing a lack of safety and efficacy data for those two uses. Like CJC-1295 it appears under "nominated but withdrawn" on the safety-risk page; unlike CJC-1295, the same page notes that ipamorelin acetate still sits in Category 2 under the 503B interim policy, which governs outsourcing facilities making batches without patient-specific prescriptions. Pepti's medication is compounded under 503A — by a state-licensed pharmacy, to a physician's prescription for a named patient — and the 503A interim list as updated 14 May 2026 has six substances in Category 2, none of them ipamorelin or CJC-1295.

Neither CJC-1295 nor ipamorelin was among the twelve peptides removed from Category 2 on 15 April 2026 — both had already left it in 2024 — and neither was on the 23–24 July 2026 committee agenda. A committee vote is a recommendation, not a decision; the FDA issues its own determination through rulemaking, and none has been issued for either. The committee judged the specific uses in the nomination packages against approved drugs that already exist for them; its vote is not a finding that the peptides are unsafe at prescribed doses, and it is not a ban. None of the three is an FDA-approved drug product today, and compounded medications never are.

Most people notice little beyond the injection itself. What gets reported earliest is sleep — deeper, or harder to wake from — and some people report a warm flush or a brief head rush for a few minutes after a dose, which fades. Noticing nothing in this window is normal.

This is where prescribers most often describe easier recovery from training and steadier daytime energy. It is also when a follow-up IGF-1 is worth drawing: the human sermorelin trials saw it move within two to four weeks of nightly dosing, and if yours has not, that is a conversation about dose, timing, or whether this is the right tool.

Where body-composition change is reported at all, this is the window prescribers describe it in, and always alongside training and adequate protein rather than instead of them. The sixteen-week human trial saw IGF-1 begin to drift back toward baseline on continued treatment — the axis adapts — which is one reason a physician adjusts the dose over time rather than leaving it fixed.

No withdrawal and no rebound is described for any component; the pituitary was never switched off, which is the key difference from injected growth hormone. Whatever was gained in sleep pattern or recovery tends to fade over weeks as the nocturnal pulse returns to its previous amplitude.

No standard dose is published for this blend and none is stated here: the physician sets it, adjusts it at refills as IGF-1 and your response come in, and the number of clicks is printed on your cartridge label. Because the three peptides are in fixed proportion, every dose delivers CJC-1295, ipamorelin and sermorelin in the same 1 : 4 : 4 ratio; you cannot take more of one and less of another. If your directions and the pen's dial appear to disagree, ask before dosing.

Subcutaneous means into the fat layer, not the muscle; abdomen and thigh are the usual sites, rotated. The empty-stomach instruction is not a formality: glucose and fatty acids after a meal blunt the growth hormone pulse, which is the whole point of the injection. Treatment is nightly, and prescribers direct it at bedtime so the induced pulse lines up with the body's own slow-wave-sleep pulse. Your directions will say.

Refills ship monthly, one cartridge per fill, never a stockpile. How many doses a cartridge holds depends on the dose your physician sets, which is another reason the number is on your label rather than here.

Refrigerated, and it ships that way in insulated packaging with ice packs. A cartridge in use stays in the refrigerator between doses, with the needle tip removed. Beyond-use dating is on the label.

The only difference is sermorelin. CJC-1295 / Ipamorelin is the two-peptide version, as a vial: the same GHRH-plus-ghrelin logic with one GHRH analogue rather than two. It is the more common prescription, costs less, and no study shows the three-peptide version does more.

Ipamorelin + Sermorelin is the same idea built on sermorelin alone, without CJC-1295, as a vial. If a physician wants the blend whose GHRH component was an approved drug and nothing else, this is it.

Tesamorelin is a different GHRH analogue, the one with randomised human trials and an FDA-approved brand for excess abdominal fat in a specific population. If visceral fat is the target a physician may prefer it; if sleep and recovery are, a sermorelin- or CJC-based blend is the more usual choice. The TITAN and ASCEND blends combine tesamorelin with CJC-1295 and ipamorelin.

This blend is supplied only as a pre-filled 3 mL cartridge for the reusable click-dial pepti Pen; the pharmacy does not carry it as a vial. The format removes the draw step and measures in clicks. If a syringe-and-vial format matters to you, the two-peptide blends above come that way.