CJC-1295, Ipamorelin, Sermorelin, Tesamorelin — the four compared
Three of the four are GHRH analogues acting at the GHRH receptor: Sermorelin, CJC-1295 and Tesamorelin. Ipamorelin is the outlier — a secretagogue acting at the ghrelin receptor instead. Tesamorelin is also the only one of the four that exists as an FDA-approved prescription drug, which changes how it can be sold and advertised regardless of any comparison of the molecules themselves.
These four get compared in every pairwise combination, which produces a lot of pages and not much clarity. Laid out together, the structure is simple: three share a receptor, one does not, and one of the four is a regulated drug.
All four, side by side
| Receptor | Class | Regulatory status | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sermorelin | GHRH receptor | GHRH analogue | Not approved |
| CJC-1295 (no DAC) | GHRH receptor | GHRH analogue, modified | Not approved |
| Tesamorelin | GHRH receptor | GHRH analogue, stabilised | FDA-approved, one indication |
| Ipamorelin | Ghrelin receptor | Growth-hormone secretagogue | Not approved |
The one distinction that actually sorts them
Read the table by column rather than by row and the grouping falls out immediately. Three compounds are variations on mimicking the native releasing hormone, differing in how long they resist degradation. The fourth engages a separate pathway entirely.
That is why Ipamorelin is so often studied alongside a GHRH analogue rather than against one — the pairing exists because the mechanisms are complementary, not because the compounds are interchangeable.
What the regulatory column changes
- An approved drug is refused by Google Merchant Center outright, which is why Tesamorelin sits outside our product feed while others do not.
- Approval is indication-specific and says nothing about any other use.
- Non-approval is not a quality statement either — research material quality is settled by the certificate of analysis, not by regulatory category.
- Vendors listing all four with identical framing have generally not considered this column at all.
What no comparison here can tell you
Head-to-head research across these four is thin. Most published work studies one compound against a control, and combination studies pair rather than rank. Any confident ordering you encounter was assembled from separate studies with different models and endpoints, which is not a basis for ranking anything.
The compounds discussed here
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Frequently asked questions
- Which of these act on the same receptor?
- Sermorelin, CJC-1295 and Tesamorelin are all GHRH analogues and act at the GHRH receptor. Ipamorelin acts at the ghrelin receptor as a secretagogue, which makes it the mechanistic outlier of the four despite being catalogued alongside them.
- Why are CJC-1295 and Ipamorelin studied together?
- Because they engage different receptors that converge on the same axis, they are frequently paired in research protocols. That pairing is the reason the two names appear together so often, and it is also why people mistakenly assume they are the same class of compound.
- Does any of them have regulatory approval?
- Tesamorelin is approved by the FDA for one specific indication. The other three are not approved. This is a legal distinction that governs advertising, payment processing and marketplace listing, and it says nothing about the quality of any research material.
References
Primary literature for the compounds above. Links open the record on PubMed.
- Effects of tesamorelin, a growth hormone-releasing factor, in HIV-infected patients with abdominal fat accumulation: a randomized placebo-controlled trial with a safety extension Falutz J, et al. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. 2010. PMID 20101189 → · summary
- Metabolic Effects of a Growth Hormone-Releasing Factor in Patients with HIV Falutz J, et al. N Engl J Med. 2007. PMID 18057338 → · summary
- Pulsatile secretion of growth hormone (GH) persists during continuous stimulation by CJC-1295, a long-acting GH-releasing hormone analog Ionescu M, et al. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2006. PMID 17018654 → · summary
- Prolonged stimulation of growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor I secretion by CJC-1295, a long-acting analog of GH-releasing hormone, in healthy adults Teichman SL, et al. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2006. PMID 16352683 → · summary
- Sermorelin: a review of its use in the diagnosis and treatment of children with idiopathic growth hormone deficiency Prakash A, et al. BioDrugs. 1999. PMID 18031173 → · summary
- Continuous subcutaneous GHRH(1-29)NH2 promotes growth over 1 year in short, slowly growing children Thorner M, et al. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 1990. PMID 2140733 → · summary
- Ipamorelin, a new growth-hormone-releasing peptide, induces longitudinal bone growth in rats Svensson J, et al. Growth Horm IGF Res. 1999. PMID 10373343 → · summary
- Ipamorelin, the first selective growth hormone secretagogue Raun K, et al. Eur J Endocrinol. 1998. PMID 9849822 → · summary