Sermorelin + Ipamorelin
Almost the same stack as CJC-1295 with ipamorelin, at the same price, with a longer paper trail.
Sermorelin is the original version of the growth hormone signal that CJC-1295 was later built from. The two differ at four positions out of twenty-nine. Sermorelin is also the only one of them that ever held a full FDA approval, and it lost that approval for business reasons rather than safety ones.
The same two doors, with the original key.
Growth hormone reaches the bloodstream through two switches. One compound raises how much the pituitary will release, the other triggers the release. Taking one from each is the standard argument, and it is the logic behind CJC-1295 with ipamorelin.
This pairing swaps sermorelin in for CJC-1295 on the first switch. People choose it for its clinical history, since sermorelin was an approved drug for years and CJC-1295 never was.
The intent is the same as the CJC version: deeper sleep first, then recovery, then a slow shift in body composition. It is often the version a clinic prescribes, because sermorelin is the one compounding pharmacies have handled longest.
Four benefits, and how well each one holds up.
The bottom row is the useful one. Choosing between these two pairings is mostly a choice about paperwork rather than pharmacology.
Three questions, answered before anything else.
Two products, one backbone.
Sermorelin is the first 29 amino acids of natural GHRH, the working portion of the signal. The CJC-1295 sold without DAC, also sold as Mod GRF 1-29, starts from exactly the same fragment and changes four positions.[4]
Those four swaps protect the peptide from the enzymes that break natural GHRH down within minutes.[5] Sermorelin lasts roughly ten to twelve minutes in the blood. The modified version lasts around thirty.[6]
That is the whole difference. Both bind the same receptor on the same pituitary cells and produce the same short pulse of growth hormone. The modified version is described as a small step up in pulse durability rather than a change in category.[7]
The naming makes this harder to see than it should be. "CJC-1295" covers two quite different products: the no-DAC version shown here, and a DAC version that binds to albumin and lasts days. The CJC page covers that split. The no-DAC version is far closer to sermorelin than to its own DAC namesake.
Approved, withdrawn, and cleared of blame.
Sermorelin was marketed by Serono as Geref, approved for diagnosing pituitary growth hormone function and for treating growth hormone deficiency in children.[1] It was the first GHRH analog to receive FDA approval.
In December 2008 the sole manufacturer stopped making it. Recombinant growth hormone had taken over the paediatric market, and a short-acting upstream peptide had little left to sell into.[2]
The FDA withdrew both approvals effective June 18, 2009. In March 2013 it published a formal determination in the Federal Register that Geref was not withdrawn for reasons of safety or effectiveness.[3] That determination exists so a generic could be approved if anyone filed one, and in the thirteen years since, nobody has.
A safety withdrawal would go through the same process and say so. This one says the opposite, which means anyone citing the withdrawal as evidence that sermorelin was found unsafe is contradicting the document they are pointing at. Some sources also misdate the determination to 2009, confusing it with the withdrawal notice itself.
So sermorelin has a cleaner regulatory history than anything else in the growth hormone group. CJC-1295 and ipamorelin never held an approval. Tesamorelin holds one for a single narrow condition.
That history is also easy to overstate. An approval that lapsed eighteen years ago does not confer approval on whatever is in a vial today.[2] Sources also disagree on when the first approval was granted, giving both 1990 and 1997, likely because the diagnostic and treatment approvals came separately.
The hormone rises. The long-term payoff was never tested.
Sermorelin reliably raises growth hormone, and that is how it earned its diagnostic approval. Small 1990s studies in older adults found IGF-1 rising and lean mass edging up.[2]
Those studies were short and used surrogate endpoints, meaning blood markers standing in for outcomes people care about. Nobody has run the multi-year trial that would show whether raising growth hormone in a healthy older adult produces anything lasting.[2]
One 16-week trial of a close GHRH analog in adults aged 55 to 71 reported a temporary rise in blood fats as its only adverse effect.[3] Large, long-term randomised trials of current compounded sermorelin in adults are lacking.[4]
Ipamorelin's side of the record is thinner. It was tested twice in patients, in two Phase 2 trials enrolling 437 people for recovery of bowel function after surgery, and neither found a significant benefit. That record is covered in full here.
Identical to the CJC version, and the blend tells you nothing.
Sermorelin and the no-DAC CJC-1295 cost exactly the same at the cheapest in-stock listings, $23.99 each. So this pairing and the CJC pairing both come to $41.55 bought separately.[8] Near-identical molecule, identical price.
The premixed version is where it differs. We track four blend listings at $80 to $81 for a 10 mg vial, and not one publishes how much of each compound it contains.[8] Two of the four show no stock.
That is the worst disclosure of any blend on this site. Semax with Selank leaves seven of eleven listings unstated, and the CJC blend is an even split wherever amounts appear. This one states amounts on none of them.
Buying the two separately costs about half as much on the sticker, and it is the only way to know the balance you are taking.
No current approval, an unusual compounding position, and banned in sport.
There is no FDA-approved sermorelin product today. Geref was the only one, and its approval ended in 2009.[3]
Its compounding position is unusual. Sermorelin does not appear on the FDA's 503A or 503B bulk substance lists, and since Geref is gone it is no longer a component of an approved product.[3] One source calls that a regulatory ambiguity worth knowing about, and it is a different position from CJC-1295 and ipamorelin, which both sit in Category 2 on the 503A list.
Sermorelin is banned by WADA at all times, in and out of competition, as a growth hormone releasing factor.[4] Any tested athlete taking this pairing has committed a doping violation.
Anyone taking it has a reason to have IGF-1 checked, since raising it is the one documented effect, and the long-term consequences of holding it high are not established. That is a conversation for a doctor.
What people ask about this stack
What this page is built on
- 01Sermorelin, drug monograph. Developed as a truncated synthetic analogue of GHRH, introduced primarily as a diagnostic tool for growth hormone secretion in children, commercial production discontinued in 2008 for non-safety business reasons. Encyclopaedia entry.
- 02Sermorelin evidence and regulatory review. Source for the withdrawal being commercial rather than a safety recall, recombinant growth hormone having taken over paediatric treatment, small 1990s studies in older adults finding IGF-1 rising and lean mass edging up on surrogate endpoints, no multi-year trial having been run, and a lapsed approval not conferring approval on current vials.
- 03Food and Drug Administration. Determination that GEREF (sermorelin acetate) injection was not withdrawn from sale for reasons of safety or effectiveness. Federal Register, 78 FR 14095, 4 March 2013, docket FDA-2012-P-1071. FR Doc. 2013-04827. Records that EMD Serono notified the FDA by letter dated 2 December 2008 that it was discontinuing the product, and that the determination allows abbreviated generic applications to be approved. Also the source for the FDA withdrawing approval of NDA 19-863 and NDA 20-443 effective June 18, 2009; the 2013 determination that the products were not withdrawn for reasons of safety or effectiveness; sermorelin not appearing on the 503A or 503B bulk substance lists; and a 16-week trial of a close GHRH analog in adults aged 55 to 71 reporting transient hyperlipidaemia as the only adverse effect.
- 04Sermorelin compound guide. Source for the regulatory timeline, for sermorelin being the first GHRH analog to receive FDA approval, for large long-term randomised trials of compounded sermorelin in adults being lacking, and for the WADA prohibition applying at all times.
- 05Modified GRF (1-29). Replacement of the 2nd, 8th, 15th and 27th amino acids of GRF (1-29) yields the modified peptide, with a half-life of at least 30 minutes against under 10 minutes for the unmodified form. Sequences for both are given. Encyclopaedia entry.
- 06Head-to-head comparison of sermorelin and CJC-1295. Source for sermorelin's half-life of approximately 11 to 12 minutes against approximately 30 for the no-DAC modified form, both at 29 amino acids, both binding the GHRH receptor on pituitary somatotrophs.
- 07Comparison describing the no-DAC modified form as functionally very similar to sermorelin, with modifications that extend its active window modestly without changing the mechanism, and as pharmacologically closer to sermorelin than to CJC-1295 with DAC.
- 08Peptide Decoding vendor pricing data, 21 September 2026. Lowest in-stock single-compound listings: sermorelin $23.99 across 66 listings, ipamorelin $17.56 across 89, and no-DAC CJC-1295 also $23.99. Four premixed listings at $80.00 to $81.00 for a 10 mg vial, none stating amounts, two showing no stock.