Adipotide is an experimental peptide built to destroy the blood vessels that feed white fat. It reversed obesity in mice and caused rapid weight loss in obese monkeys, but it also affected the kidneys.[1][2] Its only human trial was stopped after 4 patients, with no results posted, and it is not approved for any use.[4]

This profile explains how adipotide works, what the mouse and monkey studies found, its kidney toxicity, what happened to the human trial, and its legal and anti-doping status.

What is adipotide?

Adipotide (also called FTPP, for fat-targeted proapoptotic peptide, or Prohibitin-TP01) was developed by Wadih Arap, Renata Pasqualini and Mikhail Kolonin at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.[1][2]

It has two parts joined together:[2]

  • A homing part (the sequence CKGGRAKDC) that sticks to blood vessels in white fat. The team found it by screening huge libraries of random peptides in living mice.[1]
  • A killing part, D(KLAKLAK)2, a proapoptotic peptide that makes the cell it enters die (apoptosis).

Arrowhead Research licensed the technology from MD Anderson in December 2010 and developed it through its majority-owned subsidiary, Ablaris Therapeutics.[5]

How adipotide works

Fat tissue needs a rich blood supply. In 2004, Kolonin and colleagues showed that the homing peptide binds prohibitin, a protein found on the blood vessels of white fat.[1] A later study in cancer patients mapped a prohibitin and annexin A2 pair as a marker of fat-tissue blood vessels in humans.[6]

By linking the cell-killing peptide to the homing peptide, adipotide destroys blood vessel cells inside fat. Without its blood supply, the fat tissue is reabsorbed.[1] It does not work like GLP-1 drugs, which act on appetite and blood sugar.

Adipotide research: what studies have found

Mouse studies

  • Original study (2004): in obese mice, targeting the cell-killing peptide to prohibitin wiped out white fat, normalized metabolism and reversed obesity. The authors reported no detectable adverse effects.[1] MD Anderson later described the mice as losing about 30% of their body weight.[3]
  • Blood sugar: a separate research group found that the peptide improved glucose tolerance in obese mice within two to three days. The effect did not depend on weight loss or eating less.[8]
  • Other delivery methods: researchers in Japan reported that packing the same killing peptide into fat-targeted nanoparticles reduced body weight at a low dose in obese mice, where the adipotide conjugate did not.[9] A Korean team has used the fat-homing sequence to deliver gene-silencing tools to fat cells in mice.[10]

Monkey study (2011)

The key study, led by Barnhart and colleagues and published in Science Translational Medicine, tested adipotide in spontaneously obese Old World monkeys.[2]

  • Weight: MD Anderson’s news release reported that obese rhesus monkeys lost an average of about 11% of their body weight after four weeks of treatment, while body weight, BMI and waistline were unchanged in untreated controls.[3]
  • Fat: MRI and DEXA imaging confirmed a marked reduction in white fat.[2] The news release put the fall in abdominal fat on MRI at 27%.[3]
  • Insulin: insulin resistance improved,[2] and MD Anderson reported that treated monkeys used about 50% less insulin.[3]
  • Lean monkeys: lean animals did not lose weight, suggesting the effect was selective for obesity.[3]

One researcher argued in a published letter that the weight loss could instead reflect a direct effect of adipotide on how much the monkeys ate.[7]

Human studies

There are no published human results. A phase 1 trial (NCT01262664) was registered by MD Anderson in December 2010. It enrolled men with metastatic prostate cancer and obesity who had no standard treatment options. Its goal was to find the highest tolerable dose and study safety.[4] Arrowhead said MD Anderson was funding and managing the trial and that enrollment began in 2012.[5]

The trial was terminated at the investigator’s request, with a final date of January 2019, after enrolling just 4 patients. No results have been posted.[4]

Adipotide side effects and safety

  • Kidney toxicity: at the doses that worked, monkeys from three different species showed changes in the function of the kidney’s proximal tubules.[2] MD Anderson described these as the main side effects, and as dose-dependent, predictable and reversible.[3]
  • Cell-killing mechanism: adipotide is designed to kill cells. Its safety depends on how accurately it targets fat-tissue blood vessels and not other tissues.
  • No human safety data: with only 4 patients enrolled and no results posted, human side effects remain unknown.[4]
  • Product quality: adipotide sold online is not made to drug-quality standards, so its identity, purity and dose cannot be verified.

Adipotide dosage: what has been studied

There is no established or safe human dose.

  • Planned human trial: the phase 1 study started at 0.03 mg/kg injected under the skin once a day for 28 days, with the aim of finding the highest tolerable dose.[4]
  • Monkey study: monkeys received daily injections under the skin for 28 consecutive days at 0.25, 0.43 or 0.75 mg/kg, and the researchers settled on 0.43 mg/kg as the optimal dose.[2]

Because the trial never reported results, nobody knows what dose would be effective or tolerable in people.

Adipotide vs AOD-9604 and 5-Amino-1MQ

  • AOD-9604 is a fragment of growth hormone. Unlike adipotide, it did reach large human trials, but it failed to produce meaningful weight loss.
  • 5-Amino-1MQ is a small molecule that blocks the NNMT enzyme in fat cells. It has mouse data only.
  • Adipotide works differently from both: it destroys the blood vessels feeding fat rather than changing fat-cell metabolism.[1]

For approved and pipeline options with human trial data, see our weight loss peptides overview.

  • Not approved anywhere. Adipotide has no approved medical use from FDA or any other regulator. Its only human trial was terminated without results.[4]
  • Development stalled: Arrowhead’s 2013 annual report still described the MD Anderson phase 1 trial as under way.[5] We found no later report of human results.
  • Anti-doping: WADA’s 2026 Prohibited List does not name adipotide. Section S0 bans at all times any pharmacological substance not covered elsewhere on the list that has no current approval for human therapeutic use.[11] In our reading, adipotide falls under S0, so athletes should treat it as prohibited.

We did not find trustworthy, non-vendor user reports about adipotide, so this profile does not include a user-experience section.

This is general information, not legal or medical advice.