Page last checked 2026-08-12

Research compound · not FDA-approved

Ipamorelin

Ipamorelin is a peptide five amino acids long. It makes the pituitary gland let out a pulse of growth hormone.

What matters first

Why people look it up: Clinics and sellers offer it for muscle gain, fat loss, deeper sleep and faster recovery — the things people expect of growth hormone.
What the evidence shows: The pulse itself is measured and real. What follows from the pulse is not. The two completed trials tested how quickly the gut restarted after bowel surgery, and neither one beat placebo. No trial has measured muscle, fat, sleep or aging.
Dose status: Ipamorelin is not FDA-approved, so no dosing label exists for it. The sections below explain what researchers tested and what remains unknown.

Evidence snapshot

Published human trial

The fastest way to see what kind of evidence this page is built on.

Regulation: Not FDA-approvedNo US prescribing label
Dose source: Human study2 reported dose rows
Safety evidence: 3 listed safety findingsCommon and serious effects shown apart
Sources: 4 cited sourcesMedical review complete · 2026-08-12

Open the shareable evidence image

Ipamorelin at a glance: published human trial, dosing basis, regulatory status, safety coverage, and cited-source count. These details summarize the available sources; they are not treatment recommendations.

Further down: research and dosing details · how good the evidence is · questions

Medically reviewed by Jennifer Montecillo, MD · non-practicing medical reviewerReviewed 2026-08-12open the primary sources

What is known about Ipamorelin

Ipamorelin is a five-residue secretagogue, designed at Novo Nordisk in the 1990s. Its designers wanted to fix a specific problem with the earlier growth-hormone-releasing peptides: those compounds also pushed up cortisol and prolactin. Ipamorelin provokes a pituitary growth-hormone pulse with far less of that spillover. That is a real achievement in drug design, and it is where the word selective comes from. No completed trial has shown that the pulse changes any outcome.

Ipamorelin research and regulatory details: evidence quality, approval status, doses, handling, and presentation.
Topic	Value
Strongest source	Human trial
FDA approval	Not FDA-approved
Studied dosing	0.03–0.06 mg per kilogram of body weight, two or three times a day to 320 inpatients after bowel resection — the three arms of the dose-finding phase 2, none of them given under the skin — from clinical trials
Studied dosing	0.03 mg per kilogram of body weight, twice daily from the first postoperative day for up to a week; median time until people could eat a meal without trouble was 25.3 hours against 32.6 on placebo, a difference that did not reach significance — from clinical trials
What people report using	200–300 mcg two or three times a day under the skin, which is not how any of it was studied — every trial dose above went into a vein, in hospital, after bowel surgery — no trial has tested this quantity
Typical vials	5 mg

Every row links back to a source listed below. These facts are for reference, not a personal recommendation.

The row headed “what people report using” is not evidence. No trial produced that quantity. It is printed because it is what circulates, and because it is better read here, beside what the studies actually did, than on a page that is selling the vial. It describes a practice. It is not a starting point.

What the evidence for Ipamorelin is

These numbers come from a study in people that was published in a peer-reviewed journal. The drug or dose may still be experimental and may not have FDA approval.

Human trial

What it establishes: The study gave known doses to a defined group, monitored what happened and compared the results with another group.
What it does not establish: One trial cannot prove long-term safety or show that the result applies to everyone. The highest dose tested is a study dose, not a target for personal use.

Read each result with the study length, dose and number of participants. Results from separate trials are not a direct comparison because the people and study designs differ.

Where Ipamorelin is in clinical trials

2 registered studies; the program has reached phase 2. Nothing is currently open or enrolling.

Phase 2Completed
Safety and Efficacy of Ipamorelin Compared to Placebo for the Recovery of Gastrointestinal Function
Helsinn Therapeutics (U.S.), Inc · Gastrointestinal Dysmotility · 320 participants · started April 2011
Main measurement due June 2013
NCT01280344 on ClinicalTrials.gov
Phase 2Completed
Safety and Efficacy of Ipamorelin for Management of Post-Operative Ileus
Helsinn Therapeutics (U.S.), Inc · Ileus · 117 participants · started April 2008
Main measurement due December 2009
NCT00672074 on ClinicalTrials.gov

A registered study means a sponsor filed a plan and started enrolling. It is not evidence the drug works, and most drugs tested in people never reach a pharmacy. Sponsors write and update these sources themselves; the National Library of Medicine publishes them without checking them.

ClinicalTrials.gov · retrieved 2026-08-23

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Regulatory status

Wellness clinics offer this peptide widely, in the words of prescribed medicine.

The law does not back that up. Ipamorelin is not a component of any approved drug product. FDA lists ipamorelin acetate twice on its compounding page.

It sits in category 2 under 503B, added 29 September 2023. It also sits under substances nominated but withdrawn, and FDA’s own note explains the double entry. The advisory committee took it up on 29 October 2024, for growth hormone deficiency and slow gut recovery after surgery.

A withdrawn nomination is not a finding against the drug.

Full regulatory tracker →

Where to go next on Ipamorelin

The schedule, the side effects and the mixing math each have their own page.

Every reaction on the ipamorelin page, with its frequency

2 common and 1 serious ipamorelin reactions, each carrying its own source.

The published ipamorelin page of what each amount did

How a dose studied in a trial differs from an approved dosing schedule.

Convert an ipamorelin amount to units on a U-100 barrel

Every step of the ipamorelin arithmetic is printed, so the result can be checked by hand.

Choosing a water volume for a 5 mg ipamorelin vial

How the water volume changes concentration, draw size and doses per 5 mg ipamorelin vial.

The stack page ipamorelin belongs to

5 traps specific to this pair, written out past ipamorelin.

What changes in Canada for Peptide products after ipamorelin

Ipamorelin beside it — canadian residents are generally not permitted to personally import prescription drugs.

Has ipamorelin been tested alongside the other?

A 10 mg and 5 mg blend vial, split as arithmetic rather than as an ipamorelin claim.

Where ipamorelin sits among the weight loss compounds

15 compounds people take for weight loss, and what each was measured against, with ipamorelin as one example

The sleep page ipamorelin appears on

4 of the 5 sleep rows rest on reported use and nothing more, with ipamorelin as context

Who else is sold for muscle growth besides ipamorelin

What people take it for and what the muscle growth page shows stay in separate columns, including ipamorelin

Safety notes

The two completed phase 2 trials tested recovery of gut function after bowel surgery, not growth, body composition or aging. Neither separated ipamorelin from placebo on its main endpoint
Every human dose on record is intravenous and per kilogram of body weight. No published trial injected it under the skin, and none used an absolute milligram quantity
Selectivity describes a narrower hormonal response. It is not a proven benefit or a safety margin
Sold through wellness channels in the vocabulary of approved medicine, without the evidence behind it
FDA put ipamorelin acetate in category 2 of its interim compounding policy under 503B, citing immune-reaction risk, aggregation and peptide impurities, and a published report of serious harm including death when it was infused into a vein for gut motility
The World Anti-Doping Agency bans growth hormone secretagogues at all times

Questions about Ipamorelin

Is Ipamorelin FDA-approved?

No. There is no prescribing label for it, so no approved dose exists — the regulatory status section above has the detail.

How is Ipamorelin taken?

Trials study it both by drip or injection into a vein and by injection under the skin. The table above keeps each route and schedule separate.

How does Ipamorelin differ from the other compounds in this class?

Ipamorelin has been studied in people, but it works through a different system from GLP-1 and amylin drugs. Its doses and results are not directly comparable with theirs.

What is not known about Ipamorelin?

One trial cannot prove long-term safety or show that the result applies to everyone. The highest dose tested is a study dose, not a target for personal use.

Is there a Ipamorelin dosing schedule on this site?

Not a schedule — there is no approved schedule to publish here. What you get instead is the trial dosing program: the doses each arm received and how the protocol worked up to them. The studied range was 0.03–0.06 mg per kilogram of body weight, two or three times a day to 320 inpatients after bowel resection — the three arms of the dose-finding phase 2, none of them given under the skin. See what the trials tested.

4primary sources, each with the day we read it — open the documents used on this page