CJC-1295 with DAC

Status Not approved for human useBest evidence E2Sources checked 2026-09-17

CJC-1295 is a GHRH analogue whose defining feature is a group that binds covalently to albumin, giving it a half-life of days rather than minutes. Its human record is four studies in healthy volunteers, and its only registered trial was terminated in 2006 after a participant death and has never reported results.

Identity

Sequence: Tetrasubstituted hGRF(1-29) with Lys30 bearing an N-epsilon-3-maleimidopropionamide, C-terminally amidated
Formula: C165H269N47O46
Molar mass: About 3647.25 g/mol (derived from the formula, not quoted from a peer-reviewed source)
CAS: 446262-90-4
PubChem CID: 91971820
UNII: 62RC32V9N7

What it is

CJC-1295 is a 30 amino acid analogue of growth hormone releasing hormone. It is the natural GHRH fragment 1 to 29 with four amino acid substitutions, plus a thirtieth residue carrying a maleimidopropionyl group. That group is the Drug Affinity Complex, or DAC, and it is the whole compound.

The DAC binds covalently to a free thiol on serum albumin, at cysteine 34. The peptide is then carried around attached to a protein that circulates for weeks, and its half-life in healthy adults is 5.8 to 8.1 days rather than minutes.

That is the point of the molecule. CJC-1295 was selected out of three candidates, alongside CJC-1288 and CJC-1293, precisely because its albumin conjugation lasted longest. Take the DAC away and it is not one of the three. It is what they started with.

A separate product is sold as CJC-1295 without DAC. It is a different molecule with a different formula and 279 daltons less mass, it has no human evidence of any kind, and it has its own entry on this site.

How it works

It binds the GHRH receptor on pituitary somatotrophs and raises growth hormone output, and through that, IGF-1. Nothing unusual there. What is unusual is the duration, and the duration raises the obvious question: does continuous stimulation flatten the natural pulses of growth hormone release?

One study has measured that, and the answer is no. In healthy men given a single injection of 60 or 90 micrograms per kilogram, twelve hours of twenty-minute sampling a week later showed trough growth hormone up 7.5 fold, mean growth hormone up 46 percent and IGF-1 up 45 percent, with pulse frequency and pulse magnitude unaltered (Ionescu 2006). The paper is titled for that finding.

Two details from it are worth carrying. There was no difference between the 60 and 90 microgram doses, and the IGF-1 rise did not correlate with any growth hormone measure.

Research evidence

Four human studies, all in healthy volunteers, all finished by 2009

The pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic work is Teichman 2006, reporting two randomised placebo-controlled ascending-dose trials of 28 and 49 days. A single injection raised growth hormone two to ten fold for at least six days and IGF-1 one and a half to three fold for nine to eleven days. After repeated doses, mean IGF-1 stayed above baseline for up to 28 days, and the authors described evidence of a cumulative effect. No serious adverse reactions were reported, and tolerability was described as relatively good particularly at 30 or 60 micrograms per kilogram, a qualifier that implies the higher doses in the ascending arm were tolerated less well.

Then the pulsatility study above, a serum proteomics study on eleven banked samples from it, and one terminated phase 2 trial. That is the complete human record, and the longest published exposure to CJC-1295 in a human being is 49 days.

Neither Teichman nor Ionescu has a trial registry record. Both ran before registration requirements applied, so this is an era effect rather than anything worse, but it means the two studies that generate every circulating figure for this compound have no pre-registered protocol and no independently recorded analysis plan.

The trial that ended the programme

NCT00267527 was a multicentre randomised double-blind placebo-controlled phase 2 trial of CJC-1295 in HIV-associated visceral obesity, 120 enrolled, twelve weeks of treatment. It started in December 2005 and it is recorded as terminated.

ConjuChem halted it on 17 July 2006 after the death of a participant at a site in Argentina, reported at the time as occurring hours after an eleventh injection. A 2026 review states the position now settled in the literature, that the trial was discontinued after an enrolled patient died from myocardial infarction. An account that the attending physician attributed the death to pre-existing asymptomatic coronary disease and considered it unrelated to treatment circulates widely, and could not be verified here against a primary source or a company filing.

Twenty years later that trial has no posted results and no publication. Its twelve-week treatment period would have been by far the longest human exposure on record and its safety dataset the most relevant to how the compound is actually used. It is unavailable.

The timing is worth noting. The termination sits between the publication of the pharmacokinetic paper in March 2006 and the pulsatility paper in December 2006, so the two studies that supply all the human data for CJC-1295 appeared around a programme that had already stopped.

The platform survived. The molecule did not.

ConjuChem albumin conjugation technology went on: its other clinical compound, an exendin conjugate for type 2 diabetes, completed two phase 3 trials under a successor company. Seven registered trials exist across the ConjuChem family and six of them concern that compound. CJC-1295 has one, and it was terminated. No other sponsor picked the molecule up, no phase 3 was ever registered, and no trial in growth hormone deficiency was ever registered despite that being where the preclinical rationale pointed.

Safety

There is no human safety data beyond 49 days by any route, and the one trial that would have produced twelve-week data reported nothing.

The mechanistic question specific to this compound is sustained elevation of IGF-1. Repeated dosing kept IGF-1 above baseline for up to 28 days in the Teichman work, and the consequence of holding IGF-1 up for months is not addressed anywhere in the human record for this molecule. The approved GHRH analogue on the market, tesamorelin, carries a label warning for increased risk of neoplasms, a contraindication in active malignancy and a requirement to monitor IGF-1 with a discontinuation threshold. No comparable framework exists here because there is no label.

Regulatory status

CJC-1295 is not an approved drug in any jurisdiction, in either form. It was nominated for the 503A bulk drug substances list and designated Category 2, the group of substances that may present significant safety risks in compounding. The nomination was later withdrawn, and it now appears in the withdrawn section of that page rather than the active Category 2 table. Withdrawal is not a clearance.

It was not among the substances considered at the July 2026 Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee meeting.

WADA names it directly. Section S2.2.4 of the prohibited list covers growth hormone releasing factors including GHRH and its analogues, and lists CJC-1293, CJC-1295, sermorelin and tesamorelin by name. Prohibited at all times, in and out of competition.

What is not known

What happens beyond 49 days. That is the longest published human exposure, and the one trial that would have produced twelve-week data has never reported.

What sustained IGF-1 elevation does over months. Repeated dosing held IGF-1 above baseline for up to 28 days, and nothing in the human record follows that further.

Whether the 2006 participant death was related to the drug. The trial was halted, the primary record was never published, and the accounts that circulate could not be verified against a company filing.

Absolute bioavailability by any route in any species, volume of distribution, clearance, and the in vivo metabolite profile. None of it is published.

Whether any dosing interval is correct. Weekly is inferred from the half-life, not tested.

Anything at all in a patient population. There was never a phase 1 in patients, never a phase 3, and never a registered trial in growth hormone deficiency.

Doses used in published research

Amounts administered under a trial protocol. Not dosing, not a recommendation.
Trial	Population	Dose arms	Duration	What it measured
Teichman 2006 trial 1	Healthy subjects aged 21 to 61. The n was never published	One of four ascending single doses, subcutaneous. The four values were never published; the paper names 30 and 60 mcg/kg as relatively well tolerated	28 days	Peak concentration and area under the curve for growth hormone and IGF-1, plus standard pharmacokinetics
Teichman 2006 trial 2	Healthy subjects aged 21 to 61. The n was never published	Two or three doses, weekly or biweekly, subcutaneous. The values were never published	49 days, the longest published human exposure	Peak concentration and area under the curve for growth hormone and IGF-1, plus standard pharmacokinetics
Ionescu 2006	Healthy men aged 20 to 40. The n is not stated in the paper	60 or 90 mcg/kg, one single dose. The route is not specified in the paper	Single dose, reassessed one week later	Growth hormone pulse frequency and magnitude, trough and mean growth hormone, and IGF-1
NCT00267527 phase 2	120 enrolled per the registry, adults with HIV and HIV-associated visceral obesity	A low dose and a high dose against placebo. The registry does not state either amount and they have never been published	12 weeks of treatment plus 6 weeks of follow-up	Efficacy, pharmacokinetics, safety and tolerability. Terminated, no results posted, no publication

Human doses for CJC-1295 exist and come from one programme in healthy volunteers.

Subcutaneous, four ascending single doses in the first trial and two or three weekly or biweekly doses in the second, across 28 and 49 days. The authors singled out 30 and 60 micrograms per kilogram as relatively well tolerated, which for a 70 kilogram adult is about 2.1 to 4.2 mg per dose.

The pulsatility study used 60 or 90 micrograms per kilogram as a single dose and found no difference between the two.

The terminated phase 2 trial used a low dose and a high dose that the registry record does not state, for twelve weeks. Those figures have never been published.

No dosing interval has been validated. Weekly dosing is inferred from the 5.8 to 8.1 day half-life, and the only study that varied frequency in a living animal found daily better than every 48 hours, which was better than every 72.

Compiled from: Teichman 2006, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism; Ionescu 2006, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism; NCT00267527, terminated phase 2 trial; Alba 2006, American Journal of Physiology Endocrinology and Metabolism

No dose has been established as safe or effective for any indication.

Amounts above record what a named source reported administering in a study. They are not a recommendation, not a protocol, and not instructions.

Converting a vial and a syringe into a draw volume is a separate, mechanical question from what amount to use. The reconstitution calculator does that arithmetic for peptide, HCG, and HGH vials.

What circulates E5

Figures reported online. Not dosing, not verified, not endorsed.
Reported use	Route	Amount reported	Frequency	Reported length
General	Subcutaneous	1 to 2 mg per week	One or two injections	8 to 16 weeks on, 4 to 6 off
As part of a CJC and ipamorelin vial	Subcutaneous	Varies by seller	Not standardised	8 to 12 weeks

This is the rare case where the circulating figures are lower than what was studied, and the interval is right for the molecule.

The convention is 1 to 2 milligrams a week, subcutaneous, in one or two injections. Weekly dosing makes sense for a compound with a 5.8 to 8.1 day half-life, and that rationale is correct here, unlike almost everything else on this site. The studied range was 30 to 60 micrograms per kilogram, which for a 70 kilogram adult is 2.1 to 4.2 milligrams a dose, so the market figure sits below it rather than above.

Two caveats keep that from being reassuring. The authors singled out 30 to 60 micrograms per kilogram as relatively well tolerated, which implies the higher doses in the same trial were tolerated less well, so the studied range is not a safety ceiling. And nothing in the literature validates a weekly interval as correct: it is inferred from the half-life, and the only study that varied frequency in an animal found daily dosing produced more than every 48 hours, which produced more than every 72.

The aggregate pattern reported here has been formally surveyed and published in a 2026 review, which searched commercial and forum material and tabulated it alongside the peer-reviewed regimens, treating it explicitly as behavioural material rather than evidence. That is the right framing and it travels with the figures.

Recorded as an observation about what is published elsewhere. No figure here is a dose, a protocol, or a recommendation, and nothing in this section is evidence that any amount is safe or effective.