What it is
BPC-157 is a synthetic pentadecapeptide: a chain of fifteen amino acids. The name stands for body protection compound, and the sequence is a fragment of a larger protein first described in gastric juice. It does not occur on its own in nature. It is made by solid-phase synthesis.
Where it came from
The peptide was first described in the early 1990s by a research group at the University of Zagreb, which has published most of the work on it since. That concentration matters when reading the literature: a large share of the findings come from one group and await independent replication.
What it has been studied for
Almost all published work on BPC-157 is preclinical, carried out in cell cultures and in animal models. The main lines of enquiry are:
- Blood-vessel formation and the signalling pathways behind it, in cell-based and animal models
- Tendon and connective-tissue cell behaviour in culture, including cell migration and outgrowth
- Its interaction with the nitric oxide system
- Gastrointestinal tissue models, reflecting where the parent protein was found
Controlled studies in people are few and small. Nothing here should be read as a claim about what the compound does in a person.
How to read the BPC-157 literature
Research on a compound moves through stages, and each stage supports a different kind of statement. Work in cell culture shows what a compound does to isolated cells in a dish. Work in animal models shows what happens in a living system that is not a human one. Only controlled trials in people support statements about people, and for BPC-157 there are very few.
- Check the model. A result in rat tendon cells is a result about rat tendon cells.
- Check the comparison. A study needs a control group treated identically apart from the compound.
- Check who ran it. A finding repeated by an unrelated laboratory carries more weight than several papers from one group.
- Check the material. A paper that does not state the purity of its peptide leaves its own result open to question.
What a BPC-157 certificate should show
Two results matter. The HPLC trace gives purity, the share of the material that is the intended peptide. The mass spectrometry result should match the molecular weight of BPC-157, about 1,419 g/mol, which confirms the sequence is complete. Both should sit under the batch number printed on the vial. Reading a batch certificate goes through one line by line, and ours are in the COA library.
BPC-157 in the laboratory
In solution BPC-157 should be kept at 2–8°C and not frozen. Our BPC-157 10mg vial is supplied pre-mixed in 3ml, which gives 3.33mg per ml with no reconstitution step. It is also one of the three peptides in the glow stack.
Is BPC-157 legal in the UK?
BPC-157 is not a controlled drug and is not a licensed medicine in the UK. It can be bought for laboratory research and cannot be sold for human use. It is on the World Anti-Doping Agency prohibited list. Are peptides legal in the UK? covers the framework.
Vials, capsules and other formats
BPC-157 is offered online as vials, capsules, tablets and sprays. We supply it as a research vial only. BPC-157 formats compared explains what each one is and why the format matters.
Common questions
Is BPC-157 a steroid? No. A steroid is a small molecule built on a four-ring carbon skeleton. BPC-157 is a peptide, a chain of amino acids, and the two classes are unrelated chemically.
Is BPC-157 natural? The sequence is taken from a natural protein, but the fifteen-amino-acid fragment is not found on its own in the body. Every vial of it is synthetic.
Are BPC 157, BPC157 and BPC-157 the same? Yes. They are three ways of writing one compound.