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Sermorelin: what the research shows, and what it doesn’t

By Pinnacle Pulse Editorial Team · Status as of 16 October 2026 · Next scheduled update: 14 January 2027

Short answer: Sermorelin is the active 29-amino-acid fragment of the body’s growth hormone-releasing hormone. Unlike most substances on this site, it was once an FDA-approved drug, for diagnosing growth hormone deficiency and for treating some children with it. The sponsor stopped selling it in 2008, and FDA said that was not for safety reasons. Adult use has little support.

What sermorelin is

The hypothalamus makes a 44-amino-acid hormone called growth hormone-releasing hormone, or GHRH. It turns out you only need the first 29 of those amino acids to get the pituitary going. Sermorelin is that 29-piece fragment, made in a lab, with an amide group capping one end. “The shortest synthetic peptide with full biological activity of GHRH” is how a 1999 review in BioDrugs put it.

Think of it as the grandparent of several newer compounds. CJC-1295 started from the same fragment and was tweaked to last for days instead of minutes. Tesamorelin, which WADA lists alongside both, is another relative.

What has been studied

The approved uses

FDA approved sermorelin twice: first in 1990, as a diagnostic (a single injection into a vein shows whether the pituitary can release growth hormone), and then in 1997 as a treatment for children with idiopathic growth hormone deficiency and growth failure.

What did the treatment do? The 1999 review summarizes it. Daily injections sped up growth over a year in some prepubertal children with the deficiency, and a handful were followed for three years. Nobody yet knew how tall they’d end up. Looked at across studies, the gain in growth rate was smaller than with growth hormone itself, somatropin. Brief facial flushing and pain where the needle went in were the side effects reported most.

There is one head-to-head comparison, from Istanbul in 1993. Forty-three prepubertal children whose deficiency came from the hypothalamus were randomized to a low or a high dose of the GHRH fragment, or to growth hormone, for six months. Almost all grew faster than before. The low-dose group grew slowest. And only the children on growth hormone improved their height relative to bone age, which tells you whether growth is actually outpacing skeletal maturation.

Older men

The adult data are thin. A Johns Hopkins study published in Metabolism in 1997 had 11 healthy men aged 64 to 76 inject the GHRH fragment nightly for six weeks, with no placebo group. Night-time growth hormone release went up. IGF-1, the hormone that carries much of growth hormone’s effect, did not. Two of six strength measures improved, along with one endurance test. Weight, body fat, lean mass and muscle tissue under the microscope were unchanged. The authors concluded that one injection a night was less effective than several a day would be.

The end of the product

In 2008 the sponsor told FDA it was discontinuing both products. FDA withdrew both approvals in 2009, at the company’s request. In a Federal Register notice in 2013, the agency stated that the product had not been withdrawn for reasons of safety or effectiveness. That finding matters legally in the US, because it lets other companies refer to the old approval. It is not a fresh endorsement for any use, and the approved indications never included adults or aging.

What the research does not show

Benefits in healthy adults, for one. The only adult study we found had 11 older men, no control group, no change in body composition and no rise in IGF-1.

It also doesn’t show sermorelin matching growth hormone in children. Where the two were compared, sermorelin came off worse.

Long-term safety outside the old pediatric use is unknown. Back then, specialists supervised treatment and the label set the dose. Neither is true of what gets sold today.

And people sometimes read too much into the 2013 FDA notice. All it settles is why the product left the market. Off-label uses, or the quality of anything made now, it doesn’t address at all.

Status as of 16 October 2026. US: no approved sermorelin product is currently marketed; approvals were withdrawn in 2009, not for safety or effectiveness reasons. EU: EMA’s medicines data contain no sermorelin product. WADA: the 2027 Prohibited List names sermorelin under S2.2.4 (growth hormone-releasing hormone and its analogues), prohibited at all times.

FAQ

Was sermorelin ever an approved drug?

Yes. FDA approved it in 1990 as a diagnostic test and in 1997 for children with idiopathic growth hormone deficiency and growth failure. The sponsor discontinued it in 2008, and the approvals were withdrawn in 2009.

Was sermorelin withdrawn for safety reasons?

No. In 2013 FDA determined that it was not withdrawn from sale for reasons of safety or effectiveness.

Is sermorelin the same as CJC-1295?

No. Sermorelin is the natural 29-amino-acid fragment of GHRH, which breaks down within minutes. CJC-1295 is a modified version of that fragment designed to bind albumin and last for days.

Sources

  • Prakash A, Goa KL. Sermorelin: a review of its use in the diagnosis and treatment of children with idiopathic growth hormone deficiency. BioDrugs. 1999;12(2):139-57. PMID 18031173
  • Neyzi O, et al. Growth response to growth hormone-releasing hormone(1-29)-NH2 compared with growth hormone. Acta Paediatr Suppl. 1993;388:16-21. PMID 8329826
  • Vittone J, et al. Effects of single nightly injections of growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH 1-29) in healthy elderly men. Metabolism. 1997;46(1):89-96. PMID 9005976
  • FDA. Determination that sermorelin acetate injection products were not withdrawn from sale for reasons of safety or effectiveness. Federal Register 78 FR 14095, 4 March 2013. govinfo.gov
  • WADA. 2027 Prohibited List, class S2.2.4. wada-ama.org
  • EMA. Download medicine data: table of all medicines assessed by EMA (Excel), checked 16 October 2026. ema.europa.eu

Facts last checked: 16 October 2026.

About this article

Written by: the Pinnacle Pulse Editorial Team, the people who make the Pinnacle Pulse app. We work only from primary sources such as regulators, legal texts, trial registries and PubMed, and we remove claims we can’t check against one.

This article has not been reviewed by a physician. It is general information, not medical advice.

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Change log

  • 16 October 2026: First published.

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