What it is
Tesamorelin is a 44-amino-acid analogue of human growth hormone releasing factor — the natural hormone that signals the pituitary gland to release growth hormone. It is modified with a hexenoyl group at one end of the chain, which lengthens how long it survives in the body while leaving its activity intact.
Unlike most compounds in this library, tesamorelin is an approved prescription medicine. It was approved in the United States in 2010 under FDA application NDA 022505 and is marketed as EGRIFTA, with later formulations sold as EGRIFTA SV and EGRIFTA WR.
What it is approved for
One narrow use: the reduction of excess abdominal fat in HIV-infected patients with lipodystrophy.
Lipodystrophy here means a particular redistribution of body fat associated with HIV and its treatment, in which fat accumulates deep in the abdomen, around the organs. Tesamorelin reduces that specific fat depot in that specific patient group. That is the whole of the approval.
What it is explicitly not for
The label is unusually direct on this point, and it is worth quoting the substance of it: tesamorelin is not indicated for weight loss management, and the drug is described as weight-neutral.
This is not a technicality. It reduces visceral fat without reducing overall body weight — which is precisely why the label draws the line. A great deal of online writing presents tesamorelin as a fat-loss or body-composition drug for the general population. That describes something the approval does not cover and the trials did not test.
What the research shows
This entry is different from most in the library, and the difference is the point.
For an approved drug, the evidence is not a matter of interpretation. It was submitted, reviewed and published: trials in the approved population, a defined effect on a defined measurement, a documented side-effect profile, and a label that states the limits. Reported effects include joint and muscle pain, numbness or tingling in the hands and wrists, changes in blood sugar that require monitoring, and injection-site reactions. The prescribing information also states that long-term cardiovascular safety has not been established — a limitation printed on the label itself.
Compare that to a compound with no approval, where none of those things exist in any form. It is the same molecule class, the same kind of biology, and a completely different evidentiary situation.
Where it stands
Approved as a medicine: yes, in the United States, since 2010, for the indication above.
FDA compounding status: tesamorelin does not appear on the FDA's current Category 2 list of bulk drug substances that may present significant safety risks in compounding. On that page — content current as of 2026-04-22 — it appears among nominations that were withdrawn.
Available as: a prescription drug, and separately as a research chemical from vendors who are not selling the approved product. Those are not the same thing: an approved drug carries a label, a manufacturer, a batch record and a regulator behind it.
Last checked
2026-09-06. The FDA compounding page and the prescribing information were read on that date.