comparison
KPV vs BPC-157
Two compounds set against each other constantly, with very differently shaped records behind them.
KPV and BPC-157 are the two compounds people most often set against each other for inflammation and repair, and the useful comparison between them is not the one most pages make. It is the shape of each record: what exists, who produced it, whether anyone has taken the compound into a registered trial, and what regulators have actually done.
KPV sits at evidence grade D on this site's derivation, from ten tiered claim rows that are all animal, in-vitro or anecdote. BPC-157 sits at B, from thirteen rows, and the letter is higher for a reason that runs the opposite way from how a reader would take it.
BPC-157 reaches B because it has been randomized against a placebo in people and KPV never has. The one randomized study that measured effectiveness, in 53 patients with ulcerative colitis in 2005, reported a between-group difference whose confidence interval crossed zero, and it has never been published beyond a conference abstract [15]. The grade records how much research exists and how good it is, not which way the research came out. So the compound with the higher letter here is the one that has been tested and beaten, and the compound with the lower letter is the one nobody has tested at all. Both derivations are set out in full on the two hubs, which now exist for both compounds.
Not medical advice
This page reports what has been documented about a compound. It is not medical advice, not a diagnosis, not a dosing protocol, and not a recommendation to obtain or use anything described here. Talk to a licensed clinician about anything concerning your health. Read the full disclaimer.
Reviewed against editorial standards Updated
Side by side
| Property | KPV | BPC-157 |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A three amino acid fragment of alpha-MSH: Lys-Pro-Val | A fifteen amino acid sequence, GEPPPGKPADDAGLV, derived from a protein found in human gastric juice, and described in the official title of its phase 1 registration as a pentadecapeptide from a gastric source [5] |
| Evidence grade on this site | D, animals and anecdote, from ten tiered claim rows | B, human data with the endpoint missed, from thirteen tiered claim rows. The higher letter records that it has been randomized against a placebo, and the one randomized study that measured effectiveness did not separate from it |
| Human literature | None. No trial, no open-label series, no case report, and no pharmacokinetic measurement, on any route, confirmed by ClinicalTrials.gov, a PubMed clinical-trial filter, and FDA's own search [1] | Five studies, about 80 people in the arms that received it. Three are published and all three are uncontrolled: the 2021 knee-pain chart review [7], a 12-patient bladder study and a two-patient infusion report. Two were randomized against placebo and exist only as conference abstracts, recoverable through FDA's reprinting of them [15]. Each is set out with its design and its tier on the BPC-157 hub |
| Registry records | 0. ClinicalTrials.gov returns no study of KPV as an intervention | 3 as of 8 August 2026, none with results posted. A randomized phase 1 in healthy volunteers, 42 estimated, first posted 22 December 2015, status listed as unknown [5]. A completed single-arm supplement study, 40 participants, first posted 7 August 2026, nine months after it finished [13]. And a phase 2 registration in acute hamstring strain whose sponsor account is described below [4] [14] |
| Where the published work sits | What was studied, rather than what it showed: chemically induced colitis in rodents [8], provoked peritonitis in mice [10], transporter work in mice [12], and human intestinal and bronchial cell lines [8] [11]. The full set, including a rabbit corneal model and a diabetic mouse wound model, is on the KPV page with a tier on every claim | Rat models with a surgical or chemical injury: transected and detached Achilles tendons, transected and crushed muscle, a transected knee ligament, chemically induced colitis and bowel anastomoses, plus vascular and central nervous system models. Every result is on the BPC-157 page with the species, the model and a tier on each row |
| Proposed mechanism | Set out mechanism by mechanism, each carrying its own evidence tier, on the KPV page, and summarised with tiers in the evidence section below. FDA concluded that the molecular target itself remains unknown [1] | Set out the same way on the BPC-157 page. The two most specific findings are in cultured tendon cells, and the nitric oxide account offered across the rodent literature is a hypothesis rather than a target. FDA reached the same conclusion here as it did for KPV: the molecular targets have not been identified and the mechanisms of action are unknown [16] |
| Routes with published work | Free peptide in mouse drinking water [8], systemic administration in mouse peritonitis models [10], and cell culture [8] [11]. Topical and gut-directed carrier routes are covered on the KPV page | In animals: the abdominal cavity, by mouth, into the stomach, topically and as a local bath. In people: rectal, into a knee joint, into the bladder wall, and intravenously. FDA reported finding no study giving BPC-157 to a person by the oral, subcutaneous, nasal or transdermal route, and subcutaneous injection is how the retail market sells it [16] |
| Human tissue permeation | Measured, and carried with its tier, in the evidence section below and on the KPV page [9] | Not the marketed route. What was attempted instead is plasma measurement, twice, in the two unpublished rectal studies, and the compound was not detected in either [15] |
| FDA 503A position | Not on the Bulks List. Two separate voting questions were put on 23 July 2026 [2], and FDA reviewers proposed against adding either form [1]. That the committee then recommended inclusion is reported by press coverage only: FDA has published no minutes or vote record | Not on the Bulks List either, and it was first on the agenda in the same morning session, on its own two voting questions [2]. FDA reviewers proposed against adding either form, writing that a balancing of the criteria weighs against both [15]. It now sits in FDA's table of substances nominated but withdrawn rather than in the active category 2 table |
| WADA 2026 Prohibited List | Not named on the list. Reached by the S0 catch-all definition, and all S0 substances are Specified Substances [3] | Named on the face of the S0 class, prohibited at all times [3] |
| US Department of Defense, OPSS | No entry on the ingredient and substance index, and no OPSS article, checked 8 August 2026 [6] | On the DoD Prohibited Dietary Supplement Ingredients list. Its index entry carries a status label of Prohibited, and its OPSS article states it is an unapproved drug that cannot be legally prescribed or sold over the counter [6] |
| What is missing from each | Any human measurement at all, of any kind, on any route | A published randomized trial. One exists and was never written up beyond an abstract, and nothing verifiably controlled is running now |
How the two evidence bases compare
The most consequential difference between the two is that one of them has been randomized against a placebo and the other has not. BPC-157 was, twice, in the early 2000s, by the company then developing it, and neither study was ever published beyond a conference abstract [15]. KPV has no registration of any kind and no human study of any design, so nothing currently in progress anywhere could change what is known about it.
A registration in acute hamstring strain is often named as the coming answer for BPC-157, and this page no longer treats it as one. Querying ClinicalTrials.gov for that record's sponsor on 8 August 2026 returns eight records [14]. Three describe themselves in their own registered text as an example, a mock study or a fictional study. Two carry a large manufacturer's own internal protocol identifiers for that manufacturer's own molecules, one of them under the title of its published phase 3. All eight share the status recruiting, a five-week posting window, a single site, and one central contact on an email domain that does not match the sponsor name, and six of the eight share an identical start date. The BPC-157 record itself carries no disclaimer and reads as an ordinary protocol synopsis, and it has posted no results [4]. That is a description of what eight registry records contain. What follows from it here is narrow and it is enough: no statement on this page rests on that registration, and nothing controlled is counted as currently underway for either compound.
This site rates the KPV evidence base at grade D on ten tiered claim rows, every one of them animal, in-vitro or anecdote, and every one cited by number on the KPV page. The largest of them is a set of seven rodent colitis studies, cited in full on the KPV page; one of them is on the list here [Animal] [8]. The most load-bearing negative is a permeation study in which KPV did not measurably cross intact human skin [In-vitro] [9]. A specific published negative also makes the receptor family KPV is usually assumed to use an unlikely route, in the authors' own words rather than this page's [Animal] [10] [11]. A 2021 liposome paper reports the opposite and is covered on the KPV page, so this is stated as unlikely rather than settled. The entry route into the gut lining runs through the PepT1 transporter, shown first in cells and then in mice [Animal] [8] [12].
The equivalent statement for BPC-157 is now on its own hub rather than here, and it runs to thirteen tiered claim rows across 43 numbered sources. The two that matter for this comparison are the randomized ulcerative colitis study, which is the only human efficacy readout either compound has ever produced and did not separate from placebo, and the row covering subcutaneous injection, which is how the compound is actually sold and which carries the weakest tier on the site because no study in any species has used that route [16].
The asymmetry that remains is the plainest fact about this pair. About 80 people have received BPC-157 under a protocol somebody wrote down, across five studies and four different routes [7] [15]. No human being has ever received KPV in a study of any design. Whatever the animal work on either compound eventually turns out to show, only one of the two has ever been given to a person, and the one time anybody measured whether it beat a placebo, it did not.
Our takeTwo different problems, and neither is the one the letters suggest. BPC-157 has been tested against a placebo and lost, in a condition almost nobody buys it for, in a study nobody can read. KPV has never been tested at all. The higher grade belongs to the compound with the worse result, which is what happens when a scale measures how much is known rather than what is known.
Where they overlap and where they do not
The overlap is commercial rather than scientific. Both are sold into the same audience for inflammation and recovery, both turn up in the same combination copy, and both were in front of the same FDA advisory committee on the same day in July 2026 [2]. This site found no study of the two in combination, in any species, and FDA recorded the combination framing in its own review as evidence of promotion rather than as a finding [1]. The 503A record on this site sets out the meeting, the seven peptides put to it as fourteen voting questions, and what has and has not been published since.
The science does not overlap much. KPV is a gut and skin story built on an inflammatory signalling pathway and one specific transporter [8] [11] [12]. BPC-157 is a gastroprotection story that grew into a musculoskeletal one, built on rat models with a surgical injury and on a nitric oxide account that no experiment has isolated [16]. No study has tested the two against each other, in any species.
The regulatory positions are close but not identical, and the difference is instructive. BPC-157 is named on the face of the WADA S0 class [3] and is on the Department of Defense prohibited supplement-ingredient list [6]; KPV is named in neither place and is reached only by general definitions. That gap reflects how much attention each has received rather than how well studied either one is, and reading it as a safety signal in either direction would be a mistake.
Frequently asked questions
Which one has better evidence?
Not a question this page answers, and the grades are the reason it cannot be answered by comparing them. KPV sits at D: ten tiered claim rows, all animal, in-vitro or anecdote, and no human study of any design [1]. BPC-157 sits at B: five human studies including two randomized against placebo [15]. B is the higher letter and it belongs to the compound whose randomized study did not separate from placebo, because the scale measures how much research exists and how good it is, not which way it came out. More is known about BPC-157. What is known is not favourable.
Has either been tested in people?
BPC-157, yes, in five studies covering about 80 people. Two were randomized against placebo in the early 2000s and exist only as conference abstracts, read here through FDA's reprinting of them [15]. Three are published and all three are uncontrolled, including the 2021 retrospective of injection into the knee [7]. Three registry records exist and none has posted results [5] [13] [4]. KPV, no. There is no registration, no case report, no open-label series and no pharmacokinetic measurement in a person, on any route [1].
Are they used for the same things?
They are marketed into the same audience, which is not the same thing. The published KPV work is concentrated on gut inflammation [8] [12] and, much less, on skin [9]. The BPC-157 work splits between gut models, where the compound started, and rat tendon, muscle and ligament models, which is where the marketing now sits [16]. This site found no study comparing the two directly, in any species.
Is it common to take them together?
Combination copy naming both circulates widely, and the FDA recorded a regenerative combination framing of that kind in its own 2026 review of KPV, as evidence of promotion rather than as a finding [1]. This site found no published study of the two given together, in any species, so there is nothing to report about it beyond the fact that people write about it.
How was BPC-157 graded, and why did this page not carry a letter for it before?
Because the identifier-level source review behind a grade had not been run on it, and a grade is derived from tiered claim rows rather than asserted. That review published on 8 August 2026 and the letter here is transcribed from it. The history is worth recording, because an earlier draft of this page did assert a grade for BPC-157 before any of its sources had been read, and that draft was wrong twice over: it put the compound at D and said neither compound had human evidence, which the published knee-pain retrospective [7] already contradicted. The finished review found four more human studies behind it.
Are both banned in sport?
Both are prohibited, by different routes. BPC-157 is named on the face of the WADA S0 Non-Approved Substances class. KPV is not named anywhere on the 2026 list and is caught by the S0 catch-all definition, covering any pharmacological substance with no current approval for human therapeutic use. S0 substances are prohibited at all times, and the 2026 list states that all of them are Specified Substances [3].
References
- US Food and Drug Administration. KPV-related bulk drug substances: briefing document for the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee, review dated 12 May 2026. FDA advisory committee materials. 2026. Source document
- US Food and Drug Administration. Final questions, Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee, 23 and 24 July 2026: whether FDA should include certain bulk drug substances on the 503A Bulks List. FDA advisory committee materials. 2026. Source document
- World Anti-Doping Agency. The 2026 Prohibited List, international standard, effective 1 January 2026. WADA. 2026. Source document
- Hudson Biotech. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 2 trial of pentadecapeptide BPC 157 for accelerated repair of acute grade II hamstring strain confirmed by MRI (NCT07437547). Registered as recruiting; first posted 27 February 2026; no results posted. Re-read in full 8 August 2026, together with the sponsor account described in reference 14. ClinicalTrials.gov. 2026. Source document
- PharmaCotherapia d.o.o. PCO-02, a phase 1 pilot study in healthy volunteers to assess the safety and pharmacokinetics of PCO-02, whose active ingredient is BPC-157 (NCT02637284). Status listed as unknown; first posted 22 December 2015. ClinicalTrials.gov. 2015. Source document
- US Department of Defense, Operation Supplement Safety. Ingredient and substance index, and the article BPC-157: a prohibited peptide and an unapproved drug found in health and wellness products, posted 29 April 2025. Checked 8 August 2026: the BPC-157 entry reads that BPC-157 is on the DoD Prohibited Dietary Supplement Ingredients list, with a status label of Prohibited. KPV has no entry and no article. OPSS, Uniformed Services University. 2026. Source document
- Lee E, Padgett B. Intra-Articular Injection of BPC 157 for Multiple Types of Knee Pain. Altern Ther Health Med. 2021. PMID 34324435
- Dalmasso G, Charrier-Hisamuddin L, Nguyen HT, Yan Y, Sitaraman S, Merlin D. PepT1-mediated tripeptide KPV uptake reduces intestinal inflammation. Gastroenterology. 2008. PMID 18061177 DOI 10.1053/j.gastro.2007.10.026
- Pawar K, Kolli CS, Rangari VK, Babu RJ. Transdermal iontophoretic delivery of lysine-proline-valine (KPV) peptide across microporated human skin. J Pharm Sci. 2017. PMID 28343991 DOI 10.1016/j.xphs.2017.03.017
- Getting SJ, Schioth HB, Perretti M. Dissection of the anti-inflammatory effect of the core and C-terminal (KPV) alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone peptides. J Pharmacol Exp Ther. 2003. PMID 12750433 DOI 10.1124/jpet.103.051623
- Land SC. Inhibition of cellular and systemic inflammation cues in human bronchial epithelial cells by melanocortin-related peptides: mechanism of KPV action and a role for MC3R agonists. Int J Physiol Pathophysiol Pharmacol. 2012. PMID 22837805
- Viennois E, Ingersoll SA, Ayyadurai S, Zhao Y, Wang L, Zhang M, Han MK, Garg P, Xiao B, Merlin D. Critical role of PepT1 in promoting colitis-associated cancer and therapeutic benefits of the anti-inflammatory PepT1-mediated tripeptide KPV in a murine model. Cell Mol Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2016. PMID 27458604 DOI 10.1016/j.jcmgh.2016.01.006
- Parlay Wellness, with Citruslabs. A clinical trial to evaluate the effects of peptide gummies on markers of inflammation, physical performance, and recovery (NCT07752381). Single-arm, open-label, 40 actual participants. Completed 1 November 2025 and first posted 7 August 2026; no results posted. ClinicalTrials.gov. 2026. Source document
- US National Library of Medicine. ClinicalTrials.gov registry, API v2, sponsor search read in full on 8 August 2026. A search for Hudson Biotech returns eight records: NCT07437547, NCT07437560, NCT07437586, NCT07467447, NCT07481734, NCT07481747, NCT07487363 and NCT07505745. Three describe themselves in their own registered text as an example, a mock study or a fictional study, and two carry Eli Lilly protocol identifiers for Lilly molecules. ClinicalTrials.gov. 2026. Source document
- US Food and Drug Administration. FDA briefing document for BPC-157-related bulk drug substances, Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee, 23 and 24 July 2026. 68 pages. Carries FDA's reprinting of the Ruenzi 2005 and Veljaca 2002 and 2003 meeting abstracts and the recommendation against listing. FDA advisory committee materials. 2026. Source document
- US Food and Drug Administration. July 23, 2026 Meeting of the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee: FDA presentations. 149 pages. Carries the BPC-157 pharmacology limitations, the animal pharmacokinetics and the clinical safety conclusion. FDA advisory committee materials. 2026. Source document