What it is
CJC-1295 without DAC is also sold as “Modified GRF (1-29)” or “Mod GRF 1-29”. It is a short chain of amino acids (a peptide) made in a lab. It copies the front part of a natural body signal called growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH). The brain uses this signal to tell the pituitary gland to release growth hormone.
The chain is 29 building blocks long. Four of those blocks are swapped for ones the body breaks down more slowly.
It is the same chain as CJC-1295 with DAC, but without the extra chemical hook. That hook makes the DAC version stick to a blood protein (albumin) and last for days. No one has ever measured how long this version lasts in people. It is also not sermorelin. Sermorelin is the plain, unchanged 29-block chain, and it was once an approved drug. No company has developed this peptide as a medicine.
The peptide is [D-Ala2, Gln8, Ala15, Leu27]-hGRF(1-29)-NH2 (C152H252N44O42, 3367.9 g/mol). Compared with sermorelin, GRF(1-29)-NH2 (C149H246N44O42S, 3357.9 g/mol), it carries four substitutions: D-Ala2, which resists dipeptidyl peptidase-IV cleavage of the Ala2–Asp3 bond; Gln8 in place of deamidation-prone Asn8; Ala15 in place of Gly15, associated in GRF analogue studies with greater helicity; and Leu27 in place of oxidation-prone Met27. Compared with CJC-1295 with DAC, it lacks the C-terminal Lys(ε-maleimidopropionyl) residue, so it cannot form a covalent bond with albumin Cys34.
It is presumed to act as an agonist at the pituitary GHRH receptor, as other GRF(1-29) analogues do, which would make any effect dependent on a functioning pituitary. That presumption has not been tested: FDA’s 2024 review stated that it had not identified pharmacological studies of CJC-1295 free base or acetate. No pharmacokinetic data, including half-life, have been published.
Who made it and when
No one is on record as inventing this exact peptide as a product. Its chain is the core of CJC-1295. A Montreal company, ConjuChem, described CJC-1295 in 2005. Each of the four swapped blocks had already been tried in earlier research. ConjuChem’s own work used the version with the hook.
The version without the hook seems to have spread through bodybuilding and research-chemical sellers. In 2009, Norwegian police and customs sent an unknown product to a drug-testing lab. The lab found a 29-block peptide that matched “CJC-1295” but had no hook. The FDA’s 2024 review calls it “CJC-1295 (free base)”. “Modified GRF (1-29)” is a marketing name.
Jetté et al. (Endocrinology 2005) described CJC-1295 as a tetrasubstituted form of hGRF(1-29) with an added C-terminal Nε-3-maleimidopropionamide lysine; the tetrasubstituted core is the no-DAC peptide. No discovery paper, developer, IND, patent or registered trial for the core peptide on its own could be verified.
Henninge et al. (Drug Test Anal 2010) analysed an unknown preparation submitted by Norwegian police and customs in 2009 by LC-high-resolution MS/MS and proposed a 29-residue sequence with a C-terminal amide, consistent with the peptide marketed as CJC-1295; they noted it was likely used in the bodybuilding community. Two compounding nominations to FDA proposed “CJC-1295” for growth hormone deficiency without consistently identifying the substance; FDA’s 2024 briefing found at least nine names in use for five distinct CJC-1295-related bulk substances, and lists CAS 446036-97-1 for this free base while noting that the GSRS UNII record under that name shows the DAC structure.
What the data say
There are no published studies of this peptide in people. There are no registered clinical trials. The FDA’s 2024 review found no published studies of how it works in the body at all.
Anything said about its effects in people is borrowed from other molecules. One is the DAC version, which lasts about a week. The other is sermorelin, the plain chain that was studied and approved decades ago.
Those results cannot simply be applied to this peptide. The swapped blocks and the missing hook change how long it lasts and how strongly it acts. What is known is that it is used outside of medicine. A drug-testing lab has found it in seized products. Safe doses, side effects and long-term effects in people are unknown.
Human data: none. ClinicalTrials.gov lists no study of CJC-1295 without DAC or “Modified GRF (1-29)”; the only CJC-1295 registration, NCT00267527, concerned ConjuChem’s DAC conjugate. FDA’s 2024 briefing states that it had not identified pharmacological studies of CJC-1295 (free base) or CJC-1295 acetate, so its safety assessment of these forms drew on the DAC literature and on the expected consequences of raising endogenous GH.
Structure–activity literature on GRF analogues from the 1990s reports that position-2 substitutions slow DPP-IV cleavage and that Ala15 and Leu27 variants retain or modestly increase bioactivity, which makes greater stability than sermorelin plausible. The size of any difference in potency or half-life for this exact peptide has not been measured. FDA noted that because GH secretagogues raise endogenous GH, a safety profile resembling that of approved GH products (headache, fluid retention, effects on glucose) might be expected; that is an extrapolation, not an observation. Animal data specific to the non-DAC peptide were not identified.
Regulatory picture
Approval: no medicine with this peptide has been approved anywhere. Its plain relative, sermorelin, was approved in the US as Geref in 1990 and 1997. It was later taken off the market. In 2013 the FDA said this was not for safety or effectiveness reasons. That approval never covered this changed version.
Pharmacy mixing (compounding): in 2023 the FDA put “CJC-1295” on a list of substances that may pose significant safety risks (Category 2). That listing did not say which form it meant. The requests to allow it were withdrawn in 2024. The FDA then reviewed the no-DAC forms on its own. In December 2024, an FDA expert panel voted against adding the free base (0 to 13). It also voted against the acetate salt form (1 to 12). The vote was about the list of ingredients pharmacies may use to mix drugs. This peptide is not on that list. It was also not among the six peptides in the US health department’s October 2026 draft policy easing enforcement.
Sport: WADA, the world anti-doping agency, bans CJC-1295 at all times.
Approval: none, and no IND could be identified. Geref (sermorelin acetate) was approved under NDA 019863 (1990) and NDA 020443 (1997, treatment of idiopathic GH deficiency in a responsive paediatric subpopulation); both are listed as discontinued, and a 2013 Federal Register notice determined they were not withdrawn for safety or effectiveness reasons.
Compounding: FDA added “CJC-1295” to 503A Category 2 on 2023-09-29 and removed it on 2024-09-27 after the nominations were withdrawn. FDA evaluated CJC-1295 free base and acetate for growth hormone deficiency as a 2,000 mcg/mL subcutaneous injection, and proposed against listing, citing unclear identity, immunogenicity and impurity risk, no pharmacology data and no efficacy data. On 2024-12-04 the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee voted 0–13 (free base) and 1–12 (acetate). With no USP monograph, no approved-drug component and no 503A bulks listing, compounded products do not meet section 503A(b)(1)(A)(i). No final rule on the committee’s advice had been published, so the compounding field is recorded as unknown. CJC-1295 is not among the six peptides covered by the HHS draft enforcement-discretion policy of 2026-10-30.
Sport: WADA 2026 S2.2.4 lists CJC-1295 among GHRH analogues without distinguishing forms.
