Melanotan II is a ring of seven amino acids. It copies a hormone the body already uses to tell skin cells to make more of the brown pigment that darkens a tan.
What matters first
Why people look it up
People take it to tan faster and darker, usually alongside sunbeds or sun. A second, unadvertised reason is that it causes erections, which is why some men take it too.
What the evidence shows
One human trial exists, from 1996, in three men. It reported darker skin in two of them. It was a safety study, not a tanning study, and nothing followed it. The erections were not a stray finding either. That trial reported them, and a different molecule was later built from this one for that use alone.
Dose status
Melanotan II is not FDA-approved, so no dosing label exists for it. The sections below explain what researchers tested and what remains unknown.
Melanotan II at a glance: foreign approval or limited human data, dosing basis, regulatory status, safety coverage, and cited-source count. These details summarize the available sources; they are not treatment recommendations.
Evidence snapshot
Foreign approval or limited human data
The fastest way to see what kind of evidence this page is built on.
Regulation
Not FDA-approvedNo US prescribing label
Dose source
Human study1 reported dose row
Safety evidence
8 listed safety findingsCommon and serious effects shown apart
Melanotan II at a glance: foreign approval or limited human data, dosing basis, regulatory status, safety coverage, and cited-source count. These details summarize the available sources; they are not treatment recommendations.
Medically reviewed by Jennifer Montecillo, MD · non-practicing medical reviewer·Reviewed 2026-08-13·open the primary sources
What is known about Melanotan II
Melanotan II is a ring of seven amino acids. It tells skin cells to make more of the pigment that darkens a tan. One human trial exists, in three men, in 1996. Its amounts are per kilogram of body weight. What matters more is the vial: two laboratories measured the product and found far less in it than the label claimed.
Melanotan II research and regulatory details: evidence quality, approval status, doses, handling, and presentation.
Topic
Value
Strongest source
limited human data
FDA approval
Not FDA-approved
Studied dosing
10–30 mcg per kilogram of body weight, on alternating days for two weeks in three male volunteers (published as 0.01 to 0.03 mg/kg; the trial started every subject at the bottom of that range and escalated in 0.005 mg/kg steps, and its own recommendation for the studies meant to follow it was 0.025 mg/kg a day)— from clinical trials
Typical vials
10 mg
Every row links back to a source listed below. These facts are for reference, not a personal recommendation.
What the evidence for Melanotan II is
People have received this compound in a documented setting, or it has approval outside the United States. The available human evidence is still too limited to show a clear dose-and-result pattern for US use.
limited human data
What it establishes
It shows that people have received it and that some human information exists.
What it does not establish
It does not prove that the same dose is appropriate in the United States or that uncommon and long-term risks are known.
Check the country, study size and reason it was used. Do not treat limited human data as an FDA-approved schedule.
Where Melanotan II is in clinical trials
No trial of this compound is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov.
That is worth sitting with. Nobody has registered a study to find out whether Melanotan II works in people, so no result is coming and no date is worth waiting for. Sellers are not waiting for that work either.
We left one registration out of the count above. Registering a study does not prove it is running, and these did not hold up.
NCT07437560 — self-declared example: brief summary declares itself an example (“This example”)
Check them yourself and disagree with us if you think we got it wrong.
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.
No agency has approved melanotan II, and no company holds a license for it anywhere this site can attest.
It is sold online as a research chemical. A 2017 review reports that multiple national health organizations have issued safety warnings about it, and that is the review’s statement rather than ours — we could not reach any regulator’s own page on 13 August 2026, so this record names no country. A related but different molecule, afamelanotide, is approved for a small number of conditions.
It is not this one, and its trials are not this one’s.
Two laboratories measured what is actually in these vials and neither found the label. Three online shops each sold vials described as 10 mg; the measured content ran from 4.32 to 8.84 mg. A separate forensic laboratory put the purity of seized powder at 30%
That is what makes the arithmetic on this page different from every other page here. The calculator divides a vial by a volume correctly. It cannot know how much drug went into the vial, and neither can the person holding it
The same laboratory found unknown impurities of up to 5.9% in vials from two of the three shops. Unknown means unidentified, not measured-and-harmless
Every human dose here is per kilogram of body weight, from a trial of three men. No fixed milligram quantity has ever been published for anybody
That is the only published human trial: three people, two weeks, in 1996. The phase 1 studies it recommended were never published
The most serious events in this literature followed a single large injection. The rhabdomyolysis case was 6 mg at once, which the patient himself described as six times his intended starting amount
Moles are the recurring theme, not the rare one. New moles appearing and existing ones darkening is the most reported effect, and it has been described within 24 hours of a single injection
Melanomas have been reported in people using it, and reported is the right word. These are single cases, the reviews say conclusive evidence linking the two is lacking, and the confound is severe: this compound is used to make sunbed sessions tan harder, so the best-established cause of melanoma travels with it
ClinicalTrials.gov holds no genuine trial of this compound. The one record a search returns, NCT07437560, describes itself in its own first sentence as an example study record, and its registration says it is not FDA-regulated
Afamelanotide is a different molecule that is approved for a small number of conditions. Its safety record is not this compound’s, and the two are routinely mixed up in writing about melanotan
Nothing here is a nasal dose. A large share of what is sold under this name is a nasal spray, no published study used that route, and the quantity that reaches the blood from a spray is not the quantity in the bottle
Questions about Melanotan II
Is Melanotan II 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 Melanotan II taken?
By injection under the skin, per kilogram of body weight, on alternating days.
How does Melanotan II differ from the other compounds in this class?
Melanotan II 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 Melanotan II?
It does not prove that the same dose is appropriate in the United States or that uncommon and long-term risks are known.
6primary sources, each with the day we read it — open the documents used on this page
