What is BPC-157?
BPC-157 is a synthetic peptide of 15 amino acids, a pentadecapeptide, whose sequence was described by Predrag Sikiric's group at the University of Zagreb as a fragment of a protein found in human gastric juice. The name stands for Body Protection Compound. The sequence is Gly-Glu-Pro-Pro-Pro-Gly-Lys-Pro-Ala-Asp-Asp-Ala-Gly-Leu-Val, the molar mass is 1,419.5 g/mol, and the PubChem record lists it under the synonyms Bepecin, PL-14736 and PL-10.
The phrase "found in gastric juice" does a lot of work in marketing copy. What the literature supports is that a longer protein was isolated from gastric juice in the early 1990s and that BPC-157 is a synthetic fragment modeled on part of it. Whether the intact peptide circulates in people has not been established, and the FDA's 2026 review describes it as not well characterized from a physical and chemical standpoint. The full chemistry card and every source cited here sit on the BPC-157 compound page.
- Structure
- 15 amino acids 1,419.5 g/mol, usually sold as an acetate salt.
- Origin
- Fragment of a gastric juice protein Described by the Zagreb group in 1993.
- Evidence base
- Rodent models Tendon, ligament, muscle, gut and vascular injury in rats.
- Approval
- None No regulator has approved it; WADA prohibited since 2022.
What has BPC-157 been shown to do in animals?
Nearly all of the functional evidence comes from rats. A 2026 review of the tendon and muscle literature found that most in vivo studies gave daily systemic injections at 10 mcg/kg or 10 ng/kg through healing models that ran 14 to 21 days. Achilles tendon transection and rotator cuff detachment are the usual settings, and the reported outcomes are faster biomechanical recovery and better histology than saline controls.
The safety picture is also an animal picture. A 2025 systematic review in HSS Journal pooled rat and dog toxicology from 6 mcg/kg to 20 mg/kg and found no toxic or lethal dose and no organ changes, but no study followed animals beyond 6 weeks, and the authors found no human safety data at all. Exposure in these species is brief: the FDA's briefing document cites a plasma half-life of 5.3 minutes in dogs and 15.2 minutes in rats after a single intravenous dose. The 4-hour half-life repeated on some forums has no published source.
What human studies exist for BPC-157?
Very few, and none is a controlled trial of the subcutaneous course people describe online. The published reports are a 2021 chart review of knee injections, a 2024 open-label pilot in interstitial cystitis and a 2025 infusion pilot in two healthy adults. None had a control group, a blinded assessor or a standardized outcome measure.
The FDA's literature search for its July 2026 compounding review turned up older material that rarely appears in promotional summaries. A single 2005 meeting abstract described a placebo-controlled study in 53 adults with ulcerative colitis who received an 80 mg BPC-157 enema or placebo once daily for two weeks. The disease activity index fell 3.2 points on BPC-157 and 1.6 on placebo, and the confidence interval for the difference crossed zero. Enema studies in healthy volunteers recorded headache and flatulence as the most common adverse events and could not detect the peptide in plasma. The agency concluded that it found no human pharmacokinetic data after oral, subcutaneous, nasal or transdermal administration. The one registered dose-finding study, NCT02637284, never posted results.
| Report | Participants | Amount and route | Design | What it found |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Knee pain chart review, 2021 | 16 adults, 19-77 years | 4 mg intra-articular, once | Retrospective, uncontrolled, phone follow-up | 11 of 12 on BPC-157 alone reported improvement |
| Interstitial cystitis pilot, 2024 | 12 women, 39-76 years | 10 mg into the bladder wall, once | Open label, single arm | All 12 reported improvement |
| Intravenous safety pilot, 2025 | 2 healthy adults | 10 mg then 20 mg infused on consecutive days | Uncontrolled, blood work on day 3 | No change in blood markers |
| Ulcerative colitis abstract, 2005 | 53 adults with mild to moderate UC | 80 mg rectal enema daily for 2 weeks | Randomized, placebo controlled; abstract only | 3.2 vs 1.6 point fall; not significant |
| Phase 1 oral trial, NCT02637284 | 42 volunteers planned | 1, 3 or 6 mg tablets, then 3 mg every 8 hours | Placebo controlled, registered 2015 | No results ever posted |
How much BPC-157 did the human studies use, and where does 250-500 mcg come from?
The human reports used single procedures of 4 mg, 10 mg and 10 to 20 mg, or an 80 mg enema. No human study has given a daily subcutaneous course, and none has used anything in the 250 to 500 mcg range. That range is a community figure. A 2026 community protocol page describes 250 mcg once daily as a common starting amount and 250 to 500 mcg twice daily for tissue recovery, and states in the same breath that there are no human dose-finding trials and that the figures come from animal studies and documented practice. A 2026 calculator site quotes a wider 200 to 800 mcg band and calls the 6 to 8 week course and the 2 to 4 week break convention rather than evidence. The rodent studies behind these numbers used 10 mcg/kg once daily. A 2025 narrative review in Current Reviews in Musculoskeletal Medicine makes the point from the clinical side: the human reports used single procedures or a two-day infusion, so the multi-week schedule in circulation has never been tested in anyone.
- Rodent tendon, muscle and gut repairpreclinical
Rat studies at 10 mcg/kg daily report faster healing; none runs past 6 weeks.
- Human efficacyUncontrolled reports
Three small single-procedure reports without controls; one 2005 placebo-controlled abstract was not significant.
- Human pharmacokinetics and safetyNot established
The FDA found no human pharmacokinetic data by any route.
- The 250-500 mcg daily courseCommunity convention
Appears in no trial; every guide that quotes it says so.
How is BPC-157 reconstituted, and how stable is it?
Research vials hold a lyophilized powder, most often 5 or 10 mg of the acetate salt, which dissolves in bacteriostatic water without an acid or buffer. Milligrams in the vial divided by milliliters added gives the concentration, and a target amount divided by that concentration gives a volume. The calculator does this conversion, and the reconstitution tutorial explains why the water volume, not the vial size, sets the concentration.
- 1Read the vial
5 mg of BPC-157 acetate, lyophilized.
- 2Choose the water volume
2 mL of bacteriostatic water gives 5 mg ÷ 2 mL = 2.5 mg/mL. 1 mL would give 5 mg/mL and halve every unit count below.
- 3Convert a target amount
250 mcg ÷ 2,500 mcg/mL = 0.1 mL, or 10 units on a U-100 scale. 500 mcg is 0.2 mL or 20 units.
- 4Reverse check
0.1 mL × 2.5 mg/mL = 0.25 mg. If the product does not match the target, an input is wrong.
Stability figures are vendor and literature figures rather than label data, because there is no label. The FDA's briefing document relays reports that the lyophilized free base is stable for about 3 weeks at room temperature but should be stored desiccated below minus 18 °C, and that the reconstituted solution is stable for 2 to 3 weeks at 4 °C and 3 to 4 months at minus 20 °C. Those windows sit close to the 28-day convention that preserved water carries, covered in the storage guide.
What side effects and risks have been reported?
The small human reports recorded no serious adverse events, and the FDA's reviewers took that at face value while pointing out that the studies were short, small, exploratory in dose and thin on safety monitoring. Their conclusion was that there is insufficient clinical safety information to characterize the safety profile of either the free base or the acetate. The specific concerns were about the product rather than the molecule: the nominations did not describe impurities, the certificates of analysis examined did not match the substance nominated, and without aggregation data the potential for immunogenicity of an injectable could not be ruled out.
Is BPC-157 legal to prescribe or compound?
No regulator has approved BPC-157 as a drug, and the World Anti-Doping Agency lists it under section S0, non-approved substances, prohibited at all times. In the United States the question has turned on the FDA's interim list of bulk substances nominated for compounding under section 503A. In 2023 the agency placed BPC-157 in Category 2, the substances that raise significant safety risks, which put it outside the enforcement-discretion policy that lets pharmacies compound Category 1 substances. A compounding pharmacy therefore could not use it.
The position changed procedurally in 2026 without changing in substance. The nominators withdrew, and the FDA removed BPC-157 from Category 2 with effect from April 22, 2026; the current list, updated May 14, 2026, does not name it in any category. On July 23, 2026 the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee reviewed BPC-157 for ulcerative colitis at the agency's own initiative. FDA staff recommended against inclusion; the committee voted 8 to 6, with one abstention, to recommend both the free base and the acetate. That vote is advisory. Until the FDA completes rulemaking, BPC-157 is on no bulks list, has no USP monograph and is not a component of an approved drug, the three routes to lawful 503A compounding, so the position for a pharmacy is unchanged. TB-500 went through the same meeting; the BPC-157 versus TB-500 guide compares the two.
What this guide does not establish
Nothing here shows that BPC-157 heals a human tendon, gut or joint, that any amount is safe to inject for weeks, or that a vial sold as BPC-157 contains what its label says. The rodent literature is consistent but has not been followed by a controlled human trial in more than thirty years. The full protocol table, with clinical, preclinical and community rows marked as such and each linked to its source, is on the BPC-157 compound page; the broader context for repair peptides is in the healing and recovery guide.