CJC-1295 vs Sermorelin
There is no winner on this page. What is set side by side is the published record behind each one, which is the part the two are rarely compared on.
Both in Growth hormone
These are closer than two names suggest, and the confusion runs in one direction. What the market sells as CJC-1295 without DAC is sermorelin with four of its 29 building blocks swapped out, at positions 2, 8, 15 and 27, which is a molecule with a name of its own: modified growth hormone releasing factor 1 to 29. So the mistake that costs money is thinking you have bought sermorelin. Sermorelin's own convention runs about a seventh to a tenth of both figures it could be held against, which is downward, and grey market doses normally drift the other way.
| Field | CJC-1295 | Sermorelin |
|---|---|---|
| What a trial gave | 30 to 60 mcg/kg, about 2.25 to 4.5 mgTeichman 2006, trials of 28 and 49 days | 2 mg nightly, or 2,000 mcgVittone 1997, the only adult treatment study the author could find, 11 men, six weeks, no control group |
| What circulates | 1 to 2 mg per week, DAC version | 200 to 300 mcg under the skin nightly, titrated toward 500 mcg |
| The gap | Below the studied dose | Below the studied dose |
| How long it lasts | About 5.8 to 8.1 days in people for the clipped version, injected under the skin. For the version without the clip, I found no published figure in a person. | Two figures are in the record and they do not agree. The approved label said 11 to 12 minutes, whether it went into a vein or under the skin. A 2026 review in the journal Frontiers in Endocrinology tabulates about 4.3 minutes, give or take 1.4, and I could not locate the primary source behind the shorter figure. |
| Route studied | Injected under the skin, in a clinical trial | Into a vein at 1 microgram per kilogram of body weight, which was the hospital test the first approval covered. Under the skin nightly at 30 micrograms per kilogram in the children's treatment programme, and 2 milligrams under the skin nightly in the one adult treatment study I could find. Of the two trials that put it head to head against growth hormone in children, one gave it as a continuous infusion and the other gave it under the skin split into three doses a day. They disagreed. Growth hormone won the infusion comparison, 14.6 cm a year against 9.2, and in the one injected under the skin the high dose peptide arm came out comparable to growth hormone. |
| Route used | Injected under the skin, at home | Injected under the skin at home, at night before bed, often five nights on and two nights off. There is no approved adult labelling for any route. |
| Vial sizes | 5 mg | 0.5, 1 mg |
The distance, stated
Below the studied dose
CJC-1295
A quarter to a half of one studied injection. Lower, not higher, and still a dose no trial administered.
Below the studied dose
Sermorelin
The convention sits at about one seventh to one tenth of both figures it could be held against: the pediatric label dose of 30 mcg/kg scales to roughly 2,100 mcg in a 70 kg adult, and the one adult study used a flat 2 mg. Grey market doses normally drift upward. This one drifted down, and there is no approved adult labelling and no adult dose finding study behind it.
What people get wrong
CJC-1295
That there is only one CJC-1295. The impressive numbers on vendor pages, a 2 to 10 fold rise in growth hormone lasting six days or more, come from trials of the version with the clip, while the version most people are actually buying and injecting daily is the one with the clip removed, and not one peer reviewed human study of it exists.
Sermorelin
The mistake that costs money is thinking you have bought sermorelin when you have bought CJC-1295 without DAC. The paper that named CJC-1295 describes a tetrasubstituted form of the same 29 building blocks, meaning four of them were swapped out, at positions 2, 8, 15 and 27, with an added lysine based attachment on the end that fastens the molecule to a protein in the blood. Cut that attachment off and the four swaps are still sitting there, and the result has a name of its own, modified growth hormone releasing factor 1 to 29. So what the market sells as CJC-1295 without DAC is sermorelin with four building blocks changed rather than sermorelin itself. Anything bought under that name is worth taking the certificate of analysis to, to see whether it names an actual peptide or gives you the product name back.
Every figure above is carried across from each compound’s entry, which is where the citations live.
All 65 compounds on one page at what circulates vs what was studied, or pick another two to compare.