E
Tier
Synthetic gastric pentadecapeptide studied for soft-tissue, tendon, and gut healing.
Peptide, 15 amino acids
WADA Status:
Prohibited at all times (S0)
Human Trial Scoreboard
Completed human RCTs
None completed
Largest Human Study
Uncontrolled case series
Longest exposure
None established
Most Recent Trial
Two-person pilot
Description
BPC-157 is a chain of fifteen amino acids copied from a protein found naturally in human gastric juice. The proposed mechanism is genuinely interesting: it appears to promote the growth of new blood vessels through the VEGFR2 pathway and to modulate nitric oxide signalling, which in rodents speeds up the repair of tendon, ligament and gut lining. Those animal results are real and they are consistent across a lot of laboratory work. What has never happened is the next step. No completed randomised controlled trial in humans has been published, and the handful of human reports that exist involve fewer than thirty people in total, none of them in controlled conditions. Rat tendons and human tendons behave differently enough that the gap between them is precisely why clinical trials exist. That work has not been done, which leaves the most popular recovery peptide in the world resting entirely on animal evidence.
What Are The Claims
Claims made for this compound: Faster tendon, ligament, and muscle repair (strong rodent data, small human pilots); Protects the gut lining, including against NSAID damage (rodent); Reduces inflammation at the injury site; Often used locally near the target tissue
Evidence
This is the most popular recovery peptide in the world and it has never completed a peer-reviewed randomized controlled trial in a human being. That sentence does most of the work, but it is worth sitting with why. The tendon, ligament, and gut-lining results that every vendor page cites are rodent studies. Rat soft-tissue healing has a poor record of translating to humans, and the gap between a healing tendon in a rat and a healing tendon in a person is exactly the gap that clinical trials exist to close. That work has not been done. The FDA's own briefing materials on peptide compounding cite the specific technical problems: peptide-related impurities, aggregation, and inadequate characterization of the active ingredient. Those are the reasons a regulator declines to wave something through, and they apply here.
Evidence Strength
Animal/preclinical only
Caveats
No published randomized human trials; grey-market research chemical; not FDA-approved; transiently WADA-listed.
Safety
Alternative Measures
Legal Status
US
Not approved; removed from restricted compounding category April 2026 without approval
UK
Not approved
EU
Not approved
AU
Not approved
WADA
Prohibited at all times (S0)
Not approved by any regulator, anywhere, for any indication. The regulatory timeline is worth getting precise because it is widely misreported. The World Anti-Doping Agency added BPC-157 to its Prohibited List under Section S0 effective 1 January 2022. Separately, in September 2023, the FDA placed BPC-157 in Category 2 of its interim 503A bulk drug substances list, the designation for substances that raise significant safety risks, closing off compounding-pharmacy access. In April 2026 the FDA removed BPC-157 from Category 2 after the nominating parties withdrew their nominations. Critically, it was not promoted to Category 1. It has no USP monograph and is not a component of any approved drug, so it remains unapproved and uncompoundable, sitting in a regulatory grey zone rather than being formally cleared. A Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee meeting to reconsider BPC-157 alongside six other peptides is scheduled for July 2026.
Citations
No completed human efficacy RCT. | FDA 503A interim bulk drug substances list, Category 2 designation September 2023; removed April 2026 without Category 1 promotion. | WADA Prohibited List, Section S0, effective 1 January 2022. | FDA Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee briefing materials on peptide compounding.