Two routes to one output
CJC-1295 is an analogue of growth hormone releasing hormone. It works on the pituitary the way the natural signal does, but modified to resist the enzymatic breakdown that clears GHRH within minutes.
Ipamorelin is a five-residue peptide acting at the ghrelin receptor, a different route to the same endpoint. It was designed for selectivity: earlier compounds in that class also raised cortisol and prolactin, and ipamorelin was developed specifically to avoid that.
The pairing has a practical consequence in the catalogue. Both compounds are stocked separately as well as together, because a study isolating one route needs one of them and not the other. The combination device exists for the protocols that want both arms at a ratio fixed before the pen leaves the laboratory.
Pulsatility, and why it is the whole argument
Growth hormone is not released steadily. It comes in pulses, and the pattern is thought to be part of how the signal is read. Administering growth hormone directly overrides that pattern entirely.
The case for secretagogues is that they prompt the body to release its own hormone, so the pulsatile structure is preserved. Whether that preservation delivers a meaningfully different result is a question the literature has not closed.
Almost everything written online about CJC-1295 and ipamorelin treats that argument as settled, and it is not. Preserving the natural release pattern is a coherent reason to prefer a secretagogue; whether the preserved pattern produces a measurably different downstream result is a separate question. The work indexed on PubMed is thinner on that second point than the confident summaries suggest.
| CJC-1295 | GHRH analogue |
| Ipamorelin | Ghrelin receptor agonist, 5 amino acids |
| Combined rationale | Two independent routes to GH release |
| Ipamorelin selectivity | Designed to avoid cortisol and prolactin rise |
| DAC variant | Extends duration to days |
| Stocked here | No-DAC version |
| Formats | Separate pens and a combination pen |
| Category | Research use only |
What is in the vial and how to treat it. That is the whole of it.
DAC or no DAC, and what it changes
CJC-1295 comes in two versions. The DAC variant carries a drug affinity complex that binds it to blood proteins and extends its presence to days; the version without DAC clears within hours.
That is not a strength difference, it is a timing difference, and it changes what the compound is suited to. A short-acting version can be timed against natural pulses; a long-acting one cannot. This catalogue lists the no-DAC version.
Ipamorelin belongs to a family with a longer history than its own record suggests. The GHRP-6 page and the hexarelin page cover the compounds that came first, and whose accompanying cortisol and prolactin rise the later design was reacting against. That makes them the informative comparison rather than the other releasing-hormone analogues.
Where growth hormone secretagogues meet the anti-doping rules
This is the least ambiguous corner of the catalogue where sport is concerned. Releasing hormones and secretagogues are covered as families rather than compound by compound, which means a molecule can be caught without ever having been named individually. How those categories are drawn is worth reading before anything else on this page if you compete, and the list published by WADA is revised each January.
Documentation has its own wrinkle when two compounds share a device. Two peptides mean two identity confirmations and two purity figures, and a certificate reporting a single result for a combination product has not answered the question you asked it. Check that both sequences are named and that both are reported on their own lines.
CJC-1295 and Ipamorelin in the catalogue
Every lot is analysed before release and none goes out below 99%.
Where CJC-1295 and Ipamorelin fits in
If this page raised questions, these answer them.
About CJC-1295 and Ipamorelin
The usual questions, handled plainly.