CJC-1295 and tesamorelin are now sold to very different buyers: one as a prescription drug through specialty pharmacies, the other as a research vial and compounding favourite. In 2005 they were competitors for the same approval. Both were growth-hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH) analogues, and both were in trials for one condition: abdominal fat that builds up in adults with HIV on antiretroviral therapy. This page sets out what happened to each, and what that leaves in the record today. It does not pick a winner, and it recommends nothing. How brands appear on this site is set out on our disclosure page.
The two molecules
| Tesamorelin | CJC-1295 | |
|---|---|---|
| Length | 44 amino acids, the full human GHRH sequence | 29 amino acids, GHRH(1-29) with substitutions at positions 2, 8, 15 and 27 |
| Modification | Hexenoyl (C6) chain on the first tyrosine | With DAC: a linker that binds albumin. Without DAC (also sold as "modified GRF 1-29"): the substituted peptide alone |
| Half-life | 8 min (EGRIFTA SV), 11 min (EGRIFTA WR) | With DAC 5.8–8.1 days (Teichman 2006); without DAC: no human figure |
| Schedule studied | Daily injection | Single, weekly or every-other-week injections |
| Absorption under the skin | Under 4% (EGRIFTA label, 2 mg dose) | Not reported |
| US status | Approved 2010-11-10, BLA 022505, Theratechnologies | Never approved; FDA advised against compounding it (2024) |
The structural difference drives the practical one. Tesamorelin is cleared in minutes, so the labels are once-a-day regimens. CJC-1295 with DAC rides on albumin; in its first trial one injection raised growth hormone 2- to 10-fold for six days or more and IGF-1 1.5- to 3-fold for 9 to 11 days. Tesamorelin's half-life and CJC-1295 with DAC's differ by a factor of roughly a thousand.
The race for the same indication
Tesamorelin. Theratechnologies ran a 412-patient phase 3 trial of 2 mg daily for 26 weeks (NCT00123253). Visceral fat fell 15.2% against a 5.0% rise on placebo, triglycerides fell by 50 mg/dL, and IGF-1 rose 81% (Falutz et al., NEJM 2007). A second phase 3 trial followed. FDA approved EGRIFTA on 10 November 2010. Its label still says it is not for weight loss, because the effect is weight-neutral, and that its long-term cardiovascular safety has not been established.
CJC-1295. ConjuChem registered a randomised, placebo-controlled, 12-week phase 2 trial in HIV-associated visceral obesity (NCT00267527): 120 patients planned, aged 18 to 65, BMI 24 to 30, no diabetes. The record shows a start in December 2005 and status "terminated", last dated September 2006, with no reason entered and no results posted. FDA's 2024 compounding review, citing contemporary reporting, gives the reason: a participant had a heart attack two hours after an eleventh weekly dose and died, and the attending physician attributed it to pre-existing coronary artery disease. No paper has reported the trial's data, so the question of whether the drug contributed has never been answered in public. No later patient trial of CJC-1295 has been registered.
What each record holds now
Tesamorelin has two placebo-controlled 26-week trials, 543 treated patients in its label's safety table, a FAERS history of about 1,600 reports, and two current labels (EGRIFTA SV 1.4 mg daily, EGRIFTA WR 1.28 mg daily, both effective 2026-07-29). Our tesamorelin side-effects page reads the label tables in full.
CJC-1295 has three published studies in healthy adults from 2006–2009. FDA counted 63 people exposed, 87% of them men, 73% given a single injection. Our CJC-1295 side-effects page reads those studies through FDA's line-by-line summary.
FDA's December 2024 review for its Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee evaluated five CJC-1295 forms and recommended against adding any to the list pharmacies may compound from. Its reasons included incomplete characterisation, the risk of immune reactions to an injected peptide that may aggregate, and one finding that matters to buyers: the agency did not identify any study establishing that CJC-1295 without DAC is pharmacologically active. The published human data all concern the DAC form, while the no-DAC form is what is usually paired with ipamorelin.
Side effects, as each record reports them
| Tesamorelin (label, 26-week trials) | CJC-1295 with DAC (2006 trials, FDA summary) | |
|---|---|---|
| Injection site | Reactions 17% vs 6% placebo (table); 25% vs 14% all reactions | About 70% of treated volunteers |
| Other common | Arthralgia 13% vs 11%, myalgia 6% vs 2%, peripheral oedema 6% vs 2% | Headache 63% (placebo 14%), diarrhoea 43%, flushing or transient low blood pressure 30% |
| Glucose | HbA1c ≥6.5% in 5% vs 1%; hazard ratio for diabetes 3.3 | No consistent change reported in short studies |
| Antibodies | Anti-tesamorelin IgG in 50% at 26 weeks | Not reported |
| Serious events | Label warnings: neoplasms, raised IGF-1, fluid retention, hypersensitivity | No serious reactions in the healthy-volunteer trials; one death in the terminated patient trial, attributed by the physician to existing heart disease |
The two columns are not comparable rate for rate. One comes from hundreds of patients over six months, the other from a few dozen healthy volunteers, mostly after a single dose, at doses in micrograms per kilogram rather than a fixed milligram figure. A rate in the second column is a signal from a small group, not an estimate.
What the record does not contain
- No study has compared the two drugs directly.
- No human half-life, dose-response or safety study exists for CJC-1295 without DAC.
- No trial has tested either drug for muscle, recovery, sleep or anti-ageing, the uses most often given for CJC-1295 online. Tesamorelin's label explicitly excludes weight loss.
- The data from the only CJC-1295 trial in patients — the population it was meant for — have never been published.
Reading the comparison
The same starting point produced two very different records: a drug that completed its trials and carries a label with numbers on it, and one whose development stopped in its first patient trial and whose public evidence is a few dozen volunteers. That gap is not a verdict on what CJC-1295 does; it is a statement of how little is known. Decisions about either belong with a clinician.
The dosing record for each is on our tesamorelin and sermorelin dosage page and our CJC-1295 and ipamorelin dosage page; the other approved-versus-unapproved pairing in this family is on our tesamorelin vs ipamorelin page. How the half-lives compare across peptides is on our peptide half-life page. MuscleLedger's CJC-1295 compound page covers the gym-market framing.
Sources and dates
- EGRIFTA SV (tesamorelin) label, Theratechnologies, BLA 022505, effective 2026-07-29: description, indications, dosage, contraindications, pharmacokinetics and adverse reactions, via openFDA, read 2026-10-02. Drugs@FDA BLA 022505: original approval 2010-11-10, read 2026-10-02.
- Falutz J et al. Metabolic effects of a growth hormone-releasing factor in patients with HIV. N Engl J Med 2007;357(23):2359-70 (PMID 18057338; NCT00123253).
- ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00267527 (ConjuChem, CJC 1295 in HIV-associated visceral obesity): status, dates, enrolment, eligibility, read 2026-10-02.
- Teichman SL et al. Prolonged stimulation of growth hormone and IGF-I secretion by CJC-1295, a long-acting analog of GH-releasing hormone, in healthy adults. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2006;91(3):799-805 (PMID 16352683).
- FDA. CJC-1295-related bulk drug substances, evaluation for the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee meeting of 4 December 2024 (fda.gov/media/183819): structure, conclusion and recommendation sections, read 2026-10-02.
- Tesamorelin and CJC-1295 safety tables: this site's side-effect pages, read against the same label and FDA document on 2026-09-24 and 2026-09-28.
Corrections go to the contact page.