What it is
CJC-1295 without DAC, also sold as “Modified GRF (1-29)” or “Mod GRF 1-29”, is a lab-made copy of the active front end of growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH), the brain signal that tells the pituitary gland to release growth hormone. It is 29 building blocks long, and four of them are swapped for ones the body breaks down more slowly.
It is the same chain as CJC-1295 with DAC but without the chemical hook that makes that version bind to blood albumin and last for days. How long this version lasts in people has never been measured. It is also not sermorelin, which is the unmodified 29-building-block chain and 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
Nobody is on record as having invented this exact peptide as a product. Its chain is the core of CJC-1295, which the Montreal company ConjuChem described in 2005, and each of its four changes had already been explored in earlier research on growth hormone-releasing hormone analogues. ConjuChem’s own development used the version with the albumin hook.
The hook-free version appears to have spread through bodybuilding and research-chemical markets. In 2009 a doping-control laboratory, analysing an unknown product submitted by Norwegian police and customs, found it contained a 29-building-block peptide matching “CJC-1295” but without the 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 human studies of this peptide, no registered clinical trials, and, according to the FDA’s 2024 review, no published pharmacology studies of it at all. Everything said about its effects in people is borrowed from other molecules: the DAC version, which lasts about a week, and sermorelin, the unmodified chain that was studied and approved decades ago.
Those results cannot simply be transferred, because the swapped building blocks and the missing hook change how long the peptide survives and how strongly it acts. What is documented is that it circulates outside medicine: a doping-control laboratory has identified it in seized material. Safe doses, side effects and long-term effects in humans 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 containing this peptide has been approved anywhere. Sermorelin, its unmodified relative, was approved in the US as Geref in 1990 and 1997 and later discontinued; in 2013 the FDA said the withdrawal was not for safety or effectiveness reasons. That approval never covered this modified version.
Compounding: the FDA’s 2023 “CJC-1295” Category 2 listing did not say which form it meant. After the nominations were withdrawn in 2024, the FDA reviewed the no-DAC forms on its own initiative, and in December 2024 its advisory committee voted against adding the free base (0 to 13) and the acetate salt (1 to 12) to the list of ingredients pharmacies may compound with. It is not on that list.
Sport: WADA prohibits 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.
Sport: WADA 2026 S2.2.4 lists CJC-1295 among GHRH analogues without distinguishing forms.
