Is AOD-9604 legal in Australia?

A lab-made piece of growth hormone built to treat obesity. It helped burn fat in animals, but in human weight loss studies it did no better than a dummy shot.

AOD-9604 is a lab-made copy of the tail end of growth hormone, pieces 177 to 191, with one extra amino acid, tyrosine, added at the front. It was built as an obesity drug, because it breaks down fat without the growth effects or blood sugar effects of full growth hormone.

How it works: In animals, it makes fat cells break down fat and stops them storing new fat. It does not really change IGF-1 or blood sugar.

Approval history: Not an approved drug (it failed in obesity trials); makers have told the FDA it is generally recognized as safe (GRAS) as a food ingredient

Registers or lists medicines and health products on the ARTG, its official register. It also sorts substances into schedules in the Poisons Standard. Many peptides are Schedule 4 (prescription only). So having them without a prescription, or importing them for yourself, is restricted. That is true even when no product is registered.

The legal category above is how The Longevity Archive reads Therapeutic Goods Administration listings for AOD-9604 on the reviewed date. It is not a legal opinion. Rules change. Bringing a compound into the country, prescribing it and owning it can each be treated differently. Check with the agency before you act on anything here.

Check TGA directly

Whether AOD-9604 is banned in sport is set by the World Anti-Doping Code and by military rules, not by its legal status in Australia. Before you compete or get tested, look up AOD-9604 by name on the Prohibited List, or look up a named product in Global DRO. Under the World Anti-Doping Code, category S0 bans, at all times, any drug-like substance that meets two tests. No other section of the List covers it. And no government health regulator anywhere has a current approval for it as a treatment in people. Many substances that are approved somewhere are banned by name in another section. So approval does not mean a substance is allowed in sport.

• WADA Prohibited List
• Global DRO (check a named product)
• USADA (US athletes)
• Operation Supplement Safety (US service members)

The rules you compete or serve under decide this, not this page.