"AOD-9604 before and after" is searched as if the compound had a set of results to show. It has one: the developer ran six human trials, two of them designed to measure weight loss in obese adults, and in 2007 it stopped the programme because the weight loss was not clinically meaningful. That is the outcome record, and it comes from the company that owned the compound. This page sets out what each trial was, what was and was not published, and where the claims that circulate now come from.
What AOD-9604 is — a 16-amino-acid fragment modelled on the end of human growth hormone — is on Peptide Lexicon's AOD-9604 entry. The adverse events those trials recorded are on our AOD-9604 side effects page, and the figures quoted for it on our AOD-9604 dosage page. Nothing here is a recommendation; any decision about an unapproved substance belongs with a clinician.
The short answer
| Question | What the record holds |
|---|---|
| Did it cause weight loss in people? | Not a clinically meaningful amount, by the developer's own 2013 statement covering six trials and 925 people |
| Were the efficacy results published? | No body-weight result from either efficacy trial appears in the peer-reviewed paper that pools the trials |
| Was it tested as an injection under the skin? | No — two trials gave single intravenous doses; four gave capsules or tablets by mouth |
| Where does the weight-loss claim come from? | Obese mice treated for 14 days (2001) |
| Any trial running now? | None registered on ClinicalTrials.gov under any spelling (17 October 2026) |
The six trials, by the developer's own list
The trial summary filed as a supplement to the 2013 safety paper (Stier, Vos and Kenley, Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism, doi 10.4021/jem157w) lists each study with its design. We read it on 17 October 2026:
| Code (year) | Design | People | AOD-9604 given | Measured for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| METAOD001 (2001) | Phase I, single IV doses | 15 healthy men | 25–400 µg/kg IV over 20 min | Safety, IGF-1, glucose |
| METAOD002 (2001) | Phase IIa, single IV doses | 23 obese men (BMI ≥35) | 25, 50, 100 µg/kg IV | Safety, pharmacodynamics |
| METAOD003 (2002) | Phase IIa, single oral doses | 17 obese men | 9, 27, 54 mg capsules | Safety, pharmacokinetics |
| METAOD004 (2003) | Phase IIa, 7 days | 36 obese men | 9, 27, 54 mg a day, capsules | Safety, glucose tolerance |
| METAOD005 (2004) | Phase IIb, 12 weeks, 5 centres | 300 obese adults | 1, 5, 10, 20 or 30 mg a day, capsules | "Efficacy … on Weight and Fat Loss" |
| METAOD006 (2006) | Phase IIb, 24 weeks, 16 centres | 502 obese adults | 0.25, 0.5 or 1 mg a day, tablets | "Efficacy … on Weight Loss" |
The two bold rows are the only trials that asked the question the search asks. Both gave the peptide by mouth. The products sold as AOD-9604 today are vials of powder for injection under the skin — a route none of the six trials used, so even a positive oral result would not have transferred directly.
What happened to the weight-loss results
The 12-week trial (METAOD005) was presented as a poster at an American Diabetes Association meeting, according to the trial summary; it was not published as a paper. What the company said next is on record. In June 2005 its chief executive told the trade publication Lab+Life Scientist that analysis of the trial "suggested that the optimal dosage was potentially below the lowest dose of 1mg used in the trial", so a second phase IIb would test 1 mg, 0.5 mg and 0.25 mg (LabOnline, 6 June 2005). A trial that tested 1 mg to 30 mg and concluded the right dose lay below its lowest one had not found a dose that worked.
The 24-week trial (METAOD006) tested exactly those lower doses in 502 people. Its weight-loss result has never been published in a journal. The developer's summary of the whole programme, in an announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange on 26 April 2013, reads:
"Metabolic Pharmaceuticals has previously conducted six human clinical studies involving 925 patients. While the trials proved that AOD9604 was profoundly safe, they did not show a clinically meaningful weight loss outcome across the total trial population. As a result the obesity program was terminated in February 2007."
(Calzada Ltd, ASX announcement, 26 April 2013.) The company's August 2007 announcement to the same exchange lists its remaining AOD-9604 work as osteoporosis research it intended to out-license, stating that it "does not intend to continue development itself" (ASX, 14 August 2007).
Weight-loss figures for the 12-week trial circulate on secondary sites. We could not trace any of them to a primary document — the poster is not online and no paper reports them — so none is reproduced here.
A safety paper with the efficacy left out
The one peer-reviewed paper on the human trials is the 2013 safety summary. It lists METAOD005 and METAOD006 as studies "to assess the efficacy (reduction in body weight)" and then reports adverse events, IGF-1, glucose tolerance and antibody tests — no body-weight result from either efficacy trial. A reader of the only paper on AOD-9604 in people cannot find out how much weight anyone lost.
The paper states its own purpose as summarising safety, and it was written for a reason the developer also put on record: its 2013 announcement says AOD-9604's food-ingredient status in the United States was "conditional only on publication of existing safety data in peer-reviewed journals", with "one paper … due for imminent publication". The paper's acknowledgements state that Metabolic Pharmaceuticals funded all six trials; one author declared a 6.9% interest in Calzada Ltd, the developer's parent, and another was a consultant to the developer. None of that makes its safety tables wrong — it explains why a paper about the only human trials of a weight-loss compound has no weight-loss table.
Where the weight-loss claim comes from: mice
The mechanism and the claim trace to animal work from 2000 and 2001. In the most cited study (Heffernan et al., International Journal of Obesity 2001, PMID 11673763), obese and lean mice were given human growth hormone, AOD-9604 or saline for 14 days by mini-pump. The abstract reports that both hormone and fragment "significantly reduced body weight gain in obese mice", with more fat burning and more glycerol in the blood, and that unlike growth hormone, AOD-9604 did not raise blood sugar. A companion paper in Endocrinology (PMID 11713213) reported reduced body weight and fat in obese mice over 14 days of injections into the abdomen.
Reduced weight gain in a genetically obese mouse over two weeks is the result that justified the human trials. The human trials are the test of it, and by the developer's account they did not confirm it.
The second life: joints and cartilage
After the obesity programme ended, the developer's 2013 announcement described AOD-9604 as having "potential to be used as a treatment for the repair of cartilage, muscle and joint disorders such as Osteoarthritis" and added: "To date, work has only been done in preclinical studies." The one indexed study is in rabbits (Kwon and Park, Annals of Clinical and Laboratory Science 2015, PMID 26275694): 32 rabbits with chemically induced knee damage received weekly injections into the joint of saline, hyaluronic acid, 0.25 mg AOD-9604 or both; cartilage scores were better in every treated group than on saline, and best with the combination. There is no human joint study of any design.
The same announcement records why the compound kept circulating: from 2010, "black market" AOD-9604 made "in China and elsewhere" was being sold to "distributors, gymnasiums, weight control centres, private clinics and individuals (athletes, bodybuilders and the obese)". The market for it grew after the evidence for its original purpose had run out.
What the record does not contain
- A peer-reviewed weight-loss result from any human trial.
- Any human trial of AOD-9604 injected under the skin, for any outcome.
- Any human trial of joint, cartilage or injury repair.
- Any registered study: ClinicalTrials.gov returned zero records for AOD9604, AOD-9604 and AOD 9604 on 17 October 2026; DailyMed returned zero labels.
- Any regulatory approval: the developer stated in 2013 that AOD-9604 had not been approved by Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration "or any other government health authority in the world".
Before-and-after photographs cannot fill these gaps; why they cannot is set out on our peptides before and after page. What injected peptides have and have not been shown to change, class by class, is on that page too; MuscleLedger's AOD-9604 page covers it from the gym side.
Sources and dates
Read 17 October 2026: Stier, Vos and Kenley 2013, article page and full text (doi 10.4021/jem157w, resolved at doi.org) and its supplementary trial summary (a Word document filed with the article); Calzada Ltd ASX announcements of 14 August 2007 and 26 April 2013 (PDFs from announcements.asx.com.au); LabOnline, 6 June 2005; PubMed via NCBI E-utilities (search AOD9604[tiab] OR AOD-9604[tiab] OR "AOD 9604"[tiab], 22 records; abstracts of PMIDs 11673763, 11713213 and 26275694); ClinicalTrials.gov API v2 term searches for three spellings; DailyMed SPL search for AOD-9604.