BPC-157 human trials: the complete list
As of October 2026, there is no full peer-reviewed randomized controlled trial publication of BPC-157 in humans for any indication.
That does not mean BPC-157 has never been given to people. It has. But the complete human record is remarkably small: three published uncontrolled studies, two historical conference-abstract programs, one older registered Phase 1 trial with no public results, one completed commercial study with no posted results, and two newly registered trials that have not yet reported results. A 2026 translational review described the published clinical evidence as fewer than 30 subjects across three uncontrolled pilot studies (the review's own table sums to 30: 2 + 16 contacted + 12, so its "fewer than 30" is approximate). PMID: 42198317. DOI: 10.3390/pharmaceutics18050625.
Here is the full list, and what each entry actually tells us.
1. Lee & Burgess, 2025: two healthy adults
The smallest published human study is also the only published intravenous BPC-157 study.
Lee and Burgess reported an IRB-approved pilot involving two healthy adults, a 58-year-old man and a 68-year-old woman. Researchers administered BPC-157 intravenously on two consecutive days and monitored vital signs, laboratory markers, and reported side effects. The paper reports that the infusions were tolerated without reported adverse effects in these two participants. PMID: 40131143.
The important limitation is scale.
What it can tell us: two adults completed this short pilot without the measured safety signals reported by the investigators. Both participants had prior IV BPC-157 exposure before this pilot (per the PubMed abstract), which limits what "tolerated" generalizes to.
What it cannot tell us: whether BPC-157 is broadly safe, whether uncommon or delayed adverse effects occur, or whether it works for any medical condition. The study had no efficacy endpoint and only two participants.
2. Lee & Padgett, 2021: knee-pain case series
The 2021 knee report was a retrospective chart review, not a randomized clinical trial.
Investigators identified 17 patients who had received intra-articular peptide injections for knee pain. Sixteen were reached for telephone follow-up. Twelve had received BPC-157 alone, while four had received BPC-157 with thymosin beta-4. The study had no placebo group and used patient-reported follow-up rather than standardized measures of function, quality of life, stiffness, or daily activity. PMID: 34324435.
The authors reported improvement in knee pain in most contacted patients. But because there was no untreated or placebo comparison group, those observations cannot establish that BPC-157 caused the reported improvement.
What it can tell us: patients in one clinic reported outcomes after receiving BPC-157, alone or with another peptide.
What it cannot tell us: how BPC-157 compares with placebo or standard care, whether improvement resulted from BPC-157, or whether the findings apply to specific knee diagnoses.
3. Lee, Walker & Ayadi, 2024: 12 women with interstitial cystitis
A second uncontrolled pilot involved 12 women with interstitial cystitis, also called bladder pain syndrome.
Participants received a single procedure in which BPC-157 was injected around areas of bladder inflammation. Outcomes were assessed using the Global Response Assessment questionnaire. The authors reported symptom improvement and no reported adverse events among the 12 participants. PMID: 39325560.
Again, there was no placebo or untreated control group.
What it can tell us: 12 women reported symptom outcomes after one BPC-157 procedure.
What it cannot tell us: whether BPC-157 caused those changes. Without randomization and a comparison group, placebo effects, natural symptom variation, procedural effects, and other explanations cannot be separated from a treatment effect.
4. NCT02637284: the Phase 1 trial that never produced public results
This is one of the most important entries because it was designed to provide the type of evidence BPC-157 still lacks.
NCT02637284 was registered in December 2015 as a Phase 1 randomized, placebo-controlled study of an oral BPC-157 formulation in healthy volunteers. Planned enrollment was 42 participants. Its stated goals were safety and pharmacokinetics, meaning how the compound moves through the body.
But there are no publicly posted study results. ClinicalTrials.gov currently lists the study's overall status as unknown, with its last verified status dating to 2015.
That is not the same as evidence that the entire trial itself was formally canceled.
What it can tell us: a controlled Phase 1 safety and pharmacokinetic program was planned.
What it cannot tell us: what actually happened to participants or what the pharmacokinetic results were, because no public results are available.
5. NCT07803250: University of Arkansas rotator-cuff pilot
A newer study appeared on ClinicalTrials.gov in September 2026.
NCT07803250 is sponsored by the University of Arkansas and is designed as a Phase 1 randomized pilot examining BPC-157 after rotator-cuff repair. The registry listed it as not yet recruiting when posted in September 2026.
That means it adds no human outcome evidence yet.
What it can tell us: an academic group has registered a formal controlled human study.
What it cannot tell us: anything yet about safety, tendon healing, function, or efficacy because participants had not begun producing outcome data at the time covered here.
6. NCT07752381: 40-person commercial gummy study
NCT07752381 is a different type of study.
The registry describes an open-label, single-group study involving 40 physically active adults who used a commercial gummy product containing BPC-157. The study examined inflammatory biomarkers and self-reported measures related to physical performance and recovery. It is listed as completed, with the registry reporting study completion in 2025.
No results were posted in the sources reviewed here.
The registry record was first posted in August 2026, after the study's actual completion in November 2025, meaning it was registered retrospectively.
Because everyone received the product and there was no placebo arm, the design also would not provide the same causal evidence as a randomized controlled trial even if results become available.
What it can tell us now: a 40-person commercial study was conducted and registered.
What it cannot tell us now: whether the product changed inflammation, pain, function, or recovery, because public results were not available in the reviewed registry record.
7. NCT07437547: Hudson Biotech Phase 2 hamstring study, recruiting
One registry entry does not fit the pattern of the small pilot literature above.
NCT07437547, "BPC 157 for Acute Hamstring Muscle Strain Repair," is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 2 trial sponsored by Hudson Biotech. Participants with an acute grade II hamstring strain are randomized to 14 days of subcutaneous BPC-157 or matching placebo, alongside a standardized rehabilitation program. The planned enrollment is about 120 participants, with co-primary endpoints of time to return to unrestricted sport and change in MRI-assessed injury volume at day 14.
The record was first posted on ClinicalTrials.gov in February 2026 and is listed as recruiting at a single site, Peking University Shenzhen Hospital in China. Primary completion is estimated for February 2027.
This entry needs measured caveats. Registration is self-submitted and is not peer review. The trial has reported no results, so it adds no outcome evidence yet. Independent reporting of the registry found that this record sits in a cluster of same-sponsor peptide studies sharing one site and identical start and completion dates, with one sibling record carrying "Mock Study" in its own registered title. None of that is a finding about the sponsor, but it is a reason to weight this record as a registry entry only, not as evidence.
What it can tell us: a formal controlled human study of BPC-157 is registered and recruiting.
What it cannot tell us: anything yet about safety, healing, or efficacy, because the trial has not reported.
8. Veljaca: early rectal-administration research
Human BPC-157 research did not begin with the recent pilot papers.
Earlier development work involved the compound under the designation PL 14736. Veljaca and colleagues reported early PL 14736 human safety and pharmacokinetic work involving rectal administration in healthy volunteers at abstract level.
The crucial point is publication quality: this work survives as abstract-level reporting, not a complete peer-reviewed clinical paper. The full methods, complete datasets, statistical analysis, and individual safety information available in a normal journal article were never published in that form.
The 2026 Mateescu review describes this early gastrointestinal development program as providing limited preliminary human tolerability information.
What it can tell us: formal early human exposure occurred.
What it cannot tell us: enough to independently evaluate the study to the standard possible with a complete clinical-trial publication.
9. PL-14736 ulcerative-colitis Phase 2: referenced, but never fully published
The historical record also includes a randomized ulcerative-colitis study of PL 14736.
Later literature refers to a Phase 2 program in ulcerative colitis, but it was never published as a standalone complete results paper; what we know comes from review-article descriptions and abstract-level reporting. A published review of BPC-157 and ulcerative colitis refers to PL 14736 as having reached clinical Phase II. PMID: 22300085. DOI: 10.2174/092986712803414015.
The 2026 translational review likewise describes the early PL-14736 gastrointestinal program as limited human evidence rather than a completed modern clinical-development foundation.
What it can tell us: BPC-157-related drug development reached human gastrointestinal research beyond an initial pilot stage.
So has BPC-157 actually been tested in humans?
Yes.
But that answer needs the next sentence.
The published human evidence is extremely limited, and no full peer-reviewed randomized controlled efficacy trial has established what BPC-157 does in people.
The three modern published studies involve two healthy adults, 16 contacted knee-pain patients, and 12 women with interstitial cystitis. All three lack the type of randomized comparison needed to establish efficacy. The historical randomized gastrointestinal work exists only as conference-level reporting rather than full clinical publications.
Why is the missing Phase 1 work such a problem?
Drug development usually needs a reliable human pharmacology foundation before later efficacy trials can be interpreted well.
The 2026 Mateescu translational review identifies this as a central BPC-157 problem. Human pharmacokinetics remain poorly characterized, standardized pharmaceutical preparations are lacking, and the available clinical literature consists of very small uncontrolled studies. PMID: 42198317. DOI: 10.3390/pharmaceutics18050625.
NCT02637284 was designed to address part of that gap by studying safety and pharmacokinetics in a controlled Phase 1 setting. But without publicly available results, it did not create the published human foundation later researchers could build on.
That helps explain the unusual state of the evidence in 2026: a large preclinical literature exists, while the published human record remains tiny.
Bottom line
BPC-157 has been administered to humans. That is different from saying it has been properly established in human trials.
As of October 2026, there is no full peer-reviewed randomized controlled trial publication showing that BPC-157 works for any human indication.
There are several human exposures and pilot studies. There are historical conference abstracts. There are registered trials with missing or not-yet-available results. But none closes the basic evidence gap.
That absence does not prove BPC-157 does nothing.
It means the reviewed human evidence cannot reliably tell us what BPC-157 does in people, how large any effect might be, or what its full safety profile looks like.
That is the distinction that matters.
Sources
Lee E, Burgess K. Safety of Intravenous Infusion of BPC157 in Humans: A Pilot Study. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine. 2025. PMID: 40131143.
Lee E, Padgett B. Intra-Articular Injection of BPC 157 for Multiple Types of Knee Pain. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine. 2021. PMID: 34324435.
Lee E, Walker C, Ayadi B. Effect of BPC-157 on Symptoms in Patients with Interstitial Cystitis: A Pilot Study. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine. 2024. PMID: 39325560.
Mateescu DM, et al. BPC-157 as an Investigational Peptide Therapeutic: Biopharmaceutical Challenges, Formulation Strategies, and Translational Development Barriers. Pharmaceutics. 2026. PMID: 42198317. DOI: 10.3390/pharmaceutics18050625.
ClinicalTrials.gov. NCT02637284: PCO-02 Safety and Pharmacokinetics Trial.
ClinicalTrials.gov. NCT07803250: Impact of BPC-157 on Recovery Following Rotator Cuff Repair Surgery.
ClinicalTrials.gov. NCT07752381: A Clinical Trial to Evaluate the Effects of Peptide Gummies on Markers of Inflammation, Physical Performance, and Recovery.
ClinicalTrials.gov. NCT07437547: BPC 157 for Acute Hamstring Muscle Strain Repair. Hudson Biotech. Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 2. Status: Recruiting. First posted 2026-02-27.