What is sermorelin?
By Ray Kaminski, who covers specialty pharmacy pricing and compounding economics.
Updated September 2026.
Sermorelin is a lab-made, 29-amino-acid version of growth hormone–releasing hormone, a peptide that makes the pituitary gland release growth hormone (Prakash and Goa, 1999). The FDA approved it in 1990 as Geref, the maker stopped selling it in 2008, and the approvals were withdrawn in 2009, so what telehealth sellers dispense today is compounded by a pharmacy, not an approved drug (Federal Register, 2013).
That history is why a sermorelin price is harder to read than it looks. Of the 89 sellers on this roster, 30 publish a standing monthly rate, 15 say how much drug the price buys, and 1 names the pharmacy that makes it.
Narrow this board
Showing all 4 sellers.
90/100 discloses
Liberty
$116
a standing rateper month
200–500 mcg nightly, by phase
60/100 discloses
HelloWellness
$349
a total, paid up frontevery 11 weeks
dose not stated
55/100 discloses
System Labs
$109
an introductory pricefirst month
monthly supply, 9 mg
35/100 discloses
Luvo Health
$27
a floor, not a rateper week
dose not stated
Sellers that pay us a commission come first in their group, and their button says so. That position is the only thing paying us buys. Below it, each group is ordered by what each seller states about its own figure: the kind of price first, then the figure itself. The price, the dose, the score and the review read the same either way. This is a short list on a page about something else; the full board is on compare sermorelin sellers. Every figure above was read from the seller’s own page in September 2026. None of these 4 sellers names the pharmacy that compounds its sermorelin. A pharmacy named on a seller’s GLP-1 pages does not count: it says nothing about who makes this drug.
What the molecule is and what it does
Sermorelin is a peptide, a short chain of amino acids, and it copies a hormone rather than replacing one. A 1999 review of the drug opens with that definition:
“Sermorelin, a 29 amino acid analogue of human growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH), is the shortest synthetic peptide with full biological activity of GHRH.”
It works one step before growth hormone. The same review (Prakash and Goa, 1999) puts it plainly: “Intravenous and subcutaneous sermorelin specifically stimulate growth hormone secretion from the anterior pituitary.” So a sermorelin dose is a request to your pituitary, and what comes back depends on the pituitary answering it. The trial literature mostly calls it by its chemical name, GHRH(1-29)NH2, and PubMed files those studies under sermorelin.
That literature is old. PubMed tags 19 of the records it files under sermorelin as randomized controlled trials, published between 1986 and 2005 (PubMed). Of those, 5 test a modified version of the molecule or a drug that blocks its receptor, and the newest, from 2005, is one of those. The other 14, which give sermorelin itself, are short studies of how much growth hormone it releases, plus 2 growth trials in children that ran six months. None of those 14 measures sleep, recovery or body composition, the uses these sellers market it for, so the timelines sellers print for results rest on something other than a sermorelin trial.
The approval, and how it ended
The FDA approved sermorelin twice, both times as Geref, under applications held by EMD Serono. Neither approval survives. The dates below come from the agency’s own notices (Federal Register, 2013; Federal Register, 2009).
- December 28, 1990
- Approved as NDA 19-863: a 0.05 mg ampule for testing whether the pituitary can release growth hormone.
- September 26, 1997
- Approved as NDA 20-443: 0.5 mg and 1.0 mg vials, to treat idiopathic growth hormone deficiency in children with growth failure.
- July and December 2008
- EMD Serono tells the FDA both products are being discontinued.
- June 18, 2009
- The withdrawal of both approvals takes effect, at the maker’s request.
- March 4, 2013
- The FDA publishes its finding that neither product was pulled for safety or effectiveness.
Two things in that record matter to a buyer. The only treatment Geref was ever approved for was, in the notice’s words, “the treatment of idiopathic growth hormone deficiency (GHD) in children with growth failure”. No adult treatment was approved, then or since. And the 2013 finding is the step that lets the FDA approve a generic copy: “This determination will allow FDA to approve abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs)”. None has been. Drugs@FDA lists two sermorelin applications, both Geref, both marked discontinued (Drugs@FDA). There is no FDA-approved sermorelin product marketed in the United States.
What sellers dispense instead
A compounded preparation: sermorelin mixed by a pharmacy against a prescription, with no approved label behind it. The FDA says what that means in two sentences:
“Compounded drugs are not FDA-approved. This means that FDA does not verify the safety, effectiveness or quality of compounded drugs before they are marketed.”
On 36 of the 88 sermorelin pages we hold, the seller says so itself, though on a page selling five drugs the sentence may be about one of the others. A compounding pharmacy comes up, in general terms, on 48. Only 1 of the 89 sellers on this roster names the pharmacy that makes its sermorelin, and who makes compounded sermorelin takes up the rest.
The phrase “FDA-approved” still turns up: 11 pages print it and carry no not-FDA-approved sentence anywhere. Two of those use it accurately, to say Geref was discontinued. One prints “FDA-Approved Compounds” as a badge, which describes nothing the agency does.
What that means for the price you’re quoted
With no current label, the strength, the dose and the side-effect list are whatever the seller and its pharmacy say, and most say very little.
- A standing monthly rate
- 30 of 89, from $116 to $300 a month
- No figure we could qualify
- 31 of 89
- How much drug the price buys
- 15 of 89, 5 of them as an amount per dose
- Sell it as an injection
- 72 of 89; 14 offer another form
- The pharmacy that makes it
- 1 of 89
The dose is the gap that matters most. Only 5 of 88 pages print a microgram figure anywhere a reader can see it, so two monthly prices can buy different amounts of the drug and neither page will tell you. The standing monthly rates board lines up the 30 that can be compared, and what a sermorelin price includes takes apart what those figures cover.
The side-effect list is in the same position. With no current label there is no official table, and what sellers print is their own description. Prakash and Goa’s review of the trials in children (Prakash and Goa, 1999) reports: “Transient facial flushing and pain at injection site were the most commonly reported adverse events.”
Where these counts come from
Every “N of 88” on this page counts the 88 sermorelin seller pages we could read, in September 2026. The board lists 89 companies: the extra one publishes no sermorelin page we could read, so it is on the board and in none of these counts.
We counted what a seller printed where a buyer can see it, in September 2026. A price or an answer behind an intake form or a closed FAQ is not counted, which is why a count of 88 is a count of what these pages publish rather than of what these companies would tell you if you asked.
Questions
Is sermorelin FDA-approved?
No product you can buy is. Geref was approved in 1990 and 1997, discontinued in 2008, and both approvals were withdrawn in 2009 at the maker’s request. Drugs@FDA lists no other sermorelin application. What sellers dispense now is compounded, and the FDA says compounded drugs are not FDA-approved.
Is sermorelin the same as growth hormone?
No. It’s a version of growth hormone–releasing hormone, the signal one step before growth hormone, and it works by prompting the pituitary to release growth hormone rather than supplying it (Prakash and Goa, 1999).
What was sermorelin approved for?
Two things, both narrow. A small ampule for testing whether the pituitary can release growth hormone, approved in 1990, and larger vials to treat idiopathic growth hormone deficiency in children with growth failure, approved in 1997. No adult treatment was ever approved.
Why was Geref discontinued?
The FDA’s 2013 notice records that EMD Serono told the agency in 2008 it was discontinuing both products, and that the FDA found they were not withdrawn for reasons of safety or effectiveness. It gives no commercial reason, and we won’t supply one.
Who makes compounded sermorelin Sermorelin dosage Does sermorelin need to be refrigerated?