Melanotan II

A synthetic ring of seven amino acids, built in the 1980s at the University of Arizona as a more powerful copy of the natural hormone that tells skin to make pigment. Its chain is Ac-Nle-Asp-His-D-Phe-Arg-Trp-Lys-NH2, closed into a ring between the side arms of two of its own building blocks. It breaks the standard one-letter code five separate ways — a non-standard building block called norleucine, a mirror-image phenylalanine, an acetyl cap at the front, an amide instead of a normal ending, and the ring itself — so the sequence field is deliberately left empty rather than filled with a string that would describe a different molecule. PubChem gives C50H69N15O9 and 1024.2 g/mol (CID 92432). It has never been approved as a medicine in any country, for anything. It is sold online as a freeze-dried powder for injection and as a nasal spray, marketed as a tanning shortcut and, separately, as something that produces erections.

Sold as

Injection under the skin in every published human study. Also sold as a nasal spray, which no published study has ever tested in a person.

Legal status in the EU

Not approved as a medicine in the EU, the UK, the United States or anywhere else, for any purpose. The UK regulator states that products containing melanotan II are considered medicines where they meet the legal definition, that it has repeatedly acted to remove such products from sale for over ten years; it also notes the gap that a nasal tanning spray making no medical claims will not generally be regulated as a medicine at all. The Danish Medicines Agency warned against the product in August 2008, stating it is not approved in Denmark, Europe or the USA and that its effects and side effects have not been investigated. The Swedish Medical Products Agency says selling and marketing Melanotan 2 in Sweden is illegal and advises against all use. In the United States it is an unapproved new drug: the FDA sent a warning letter to a company selling it as an injectable tanning product in August 2007, and in 2015 the company's owner pleaded guilty to two federal conspiracy counts, with the FDA proposing permanent debarment in 2016. It is not named anywhere on the WADA Prohibited List 2026, but is caught by section S0, which prohibits at all times any pharmacological substance not addressed by a later section and with no current approval by any government health authority for human use.

The body has five melanocortin switches. Melanotan II turns on four of them fully and cannot tell them apart: the one on pigment cells, which makes skin darken without sunlight; two in the brain involved in appetite and in sexual behaviour, which is where the erections, the reduced appetite and the yawning come from; and one on glands in the skin. It does not act on the fifth, which runs the adrenal stress glands. That lack of selectivity is the whole compound — the tan and the erection and the nausea are not a main effect plus side effects, they are four switches pressed at once.

Part of the bodyWhat happensHow it is knownKind of evidence

Erections

Melanotan II produces erections without any sexual stimulation, and it does it from the brain rather than from the blood vessels of the penis — which is the opposite end of the same problem from how sildenafil and its relatives work. It was found by accident: men in the 1996 tanning pilot got spontaneous erections lasting on and off for one to five hours after an injection. Two later studies were built to test it deliberately, and both found it. In men with erectile problems, an injection produced about 40 minutes of near-full rigidity across a six-hour window, against about two to three minutes after a dummy injection.

Measured in 20 men with erectile dysfunction across two double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover studies at the University of Arizona — 10 with no physical cause found and 10 with physical risk factors — using a device that records penile rigidity continuously for six hours. Each man received both the compound and the dummy injection.

Measured in people

Source [02]Source [03]Source [04]

Sexual desire

Separately from the erection itself, men reported wanting sex more. Pooling the two Arizona studies, increased desire was reported after 13 of 19 injections of Melanotan II against 4 of 21 dummy injections. The authors treated this as the more interesting finding of the two, because a drug that raises desire works on something no erection drug touches. It is also the reason a close relative of this molecule went on to become an approved medicine for low sexual desire in women.

Measured by questionnaire in 20 men across two double-blind placebo-controlled crossover studies, each man serving as his own comparison. Nobody has published a study of Melanotan II and sexual desire in women.

Measured in people

Source [03]Source [04]

The stomach, and feeling sick

Nausea is the effect people notice most and the reason many stop. It was reported at nearly every dose in the 1996 pilot and more often than after the dummy injection in both erection studies, and in the study in men with physical risk factors, 4 of 19 injections caused severe nausea. Appetite also drops: reduced appetite was reported more often after Melanotan II than after the dummy injection. That appetite effect is not a curiosity — the same brain switch is the target of an approved obesity medicine for certain rare genetic conditions.

Recorded by questionnaire in 20 men in two placebo-controlled crossover studies, and described in 3 men in the 1996 pilot. Nobody has ever measured how much a person actually eats while taking Melanotan II.

Measured in people

Source [01]Source [02]Source [03]

Skin colour

Melanotan II turns on the switch on pigment cells that sunlight normally turns on, so the skin makes more of the brown pigment melanin without needing the sun. In the only published tanning study, three healthy men injected it under the skin every other day for two weeks, alternating with salt-water injections, and two of the three had visibly and measurably darker skin on the face, upper body and buttock a week after the last dose. The third did not darken. Skin darkening is also the effect described in every case report and every published look at what users say — it is the one thing about this compound almost nobody disputes.

Measured in 3 healthy men in a single-blind pilot study in 1996, each compared against his own salt-water days, using both a machine that measures how much light the skin reflects and visual assessment. No larger or longer tanning study of Melanotan II has ever been published.

One small study

Source [01]Source [05]

Moles and freckles

The compound tells pigment cells to switch on, and pigment cells are what moles are made of. Across repeated published case reports, collected in a 2017 review, people who injected it grew crops of new moles within weeks and watched existing moles darken and change shape. In one detailed report a man with a history of melanoma and many irregular moles grew new ones with abnormal features under the microscope; when he stopped, the moles faded and stopped growing. Darkening has also been reported inside the mouth: in one patient who injected every other day for 64 days, the pigment had only begun to fade a month after stopping and, by three months, had largely cleared from the inner cheeks while pigment on the gums had faded but not gone.

Case reports — individual patients described one at a time, with no comparison group and no way to know how many other people injected the same thing and had nothing happen. A 2017 review collected them and concluded that reports of new and changing moles were the most common documented complication.

One small study

Source [05]Source [22]Source [23]

Blood vessels, muscle and the kidneys

A small number of people have been admitted to hospital shortly after injecting it with problems that have nothing to do with skin. One man injected six times what he understood to be a starting dose and arrived two hours later sweating, anxious, with a racing heart and widened pupils; his muscle-breakdown marker rose to 17,773 units per litre over the following twelve hours, and his kidney function dropped before recovering over three days in intensive care. The powder he injected was analysed and confirmed to be Melanotan II. Separately, blockage of the artery feeding a kidney has been reported, and it is the single most frequent thing filed about this compound in the US regulator's public side-effect file.

Individual case reports, one patient each, plus 9 reports in the US Food and Drug Administration's public side-effect database queried on 3 August 2026 — 3 of blocked kidney artery from Sweden, 5 of kidney artery clot from Australia and 1 of liver injury from the UK. Reporting to that database is voluntary and duplicated entries are common, so 9 reports does not mean 9 people.

One small study

Source [06]Source [19]Source [24]

The four switches it presses

The body has five melanocortin switches. Melanotan II turns on four of them fully — the one on pigment cells that makes skin darken, two in the brain that are involved in appetite and in sexual behaviour, and one on glands in the skin. It does not turn on the fifth, which is the one that runs the adrenal stress glands. This lack of selectivity is the whole story of the compound: the tan and the erection and the nausea are not a main effect plus side effects, they are four switches being pressed at once by a molecule that cannot tell them apart.

Measured on human receptors in the laboratory, not in a body. The pharmacology database maintained by the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology records Melanotan II as a full agonist at the human MC1, MC3, MC4 and MC5 receptors, with no entry at MC2.

Only seen in a dish, not in a body

Source [15]Source [25]

The best-tested thing about Melanotan II is not the tan. Two double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover studies in 20 men with erectile dysfunction at the University of Arizona found it produced erections without sexual stimulation: mean tip rigidity above 80 per cent lasted 38.0 minutes against 3.0 minutes on a dummy injection in 10 men with no physical cause found (Wessells et al., J Urol 1998), and 45.3 against 1.9 minutes in 10 men with physical risk factors, where 12 of 19 Melanotan II injections produced an erection the man reported against 1 of 21 dummy injections (Wessells et al., Urology 2000). Pooled, increased sexual desire followed 13 of 19 Melanotan II doses against 4 of 21 placebo doses. The tanning evidence, which is why almost everyone buys it, is one pilot study in three healthy men: injections on alternating days with salt water for two weeks, after which 2 of the 3 had measurably darker skin and the third did not (Dorr et al., Life Sci 1996). That is the entire benefit record — 23 men in total, all male, all adult, in studies lasting hours to a fortnight, all published between 1996 and 2000. Nothing else people buy it for has been measured in a person. A ClinicalTrials.gov search for the exact phrase "melanotan II" on 3 August 2026 returned one record, NCT07437560, whose own summary describes it as an example study record.

The two effects run on completely different clocks. The brain effects are fast and short: in the 1996 pilot, erections came and went from about one hour to five hours after an injection under the skin, with the yawning arriving alongside them; the erection studies recorded everything inside a six-hour window and about 40 minutes of that window was spent at near-full rigidity. Skin colour is slow. In the only published tanning study, three men injected on alternating days for two weeks and the darkening was assessed a week after the last dose. Pigment also fades slowly and unevenly: in one patient with pigment inside the mouth, fading had only begun one month after stopping, and at three months the inner-cheek pigment had largely cleared while the gum pigment had faded but was still visible. How long the compound itself stays in a person's blood has never been published — the only pharmacokinetic studies were done in rats and rabbits.

What was measuredWhat happenedIn whomHow it is known

How long an erection stayed nearly fully rigid, in men with no physical cause found

38.0 minutes of tip rigidity above 80 per cent after Melanotan II, against 3.0 minutes after the dummy injection, across a six-hour recording. Erections that the men themselves noticed happened in 8 of the 10, a count for which the paper publishes no placebo figure.

10 men with erectile dysfunction of no known physical cause, each given both the compound and the dummy injection in a double-blind crossover design.

Measured in people

Source [02]

How long an erection stayed nearly fully rigid, in men with physical risk factors

45.3 minutes of tip rigidity above 80 per cent after Melanotan II, against 1.9 minutes after the dummy injection. Counting by injection rather than by man, 12 of 19 Melanotan II injections produced an erection the man reported, against 1 of 21 dummy injections.

10 men with erectile dysfunction and physical risk factors, each given the compound twice and the dummy injection twice, double-blind, six hours of recording per injection.

Measured in people

Source [03]

Whether men said they wanted sex more

Increased sexual desire was reported after 13 of 19 injections of Melanotan II — 68 per cent — against 4 of 21 dummy injections, or 19 per cent.

The two Arizona studies pooled: 20 men with erectile dysfunction, each acting as his own comparison.

Measured in people

Source [04]

Skin darkening

2 of 3 men had measurably increased pigmentation on the face, upper body and buttock one week after the last dose; the third did not. Each man was compared against his own salt-water injection days rather than against a separate group, and the published report gives no numerical value for the salt-water days.

3 healthy men, injected under the skin on alternating days with Melanotan II or salt water, Monday to Friday for two weeks, at 0.01 to 0.03 milligrams per kilogram of body weight.

One small study

Source [01]

Common in the studies, and more frequent than after a dummy injection: nausea — severe after 4 of 19 injections in one study — plus a bout of stretching and yawning, reduced appetite, and drowsiness in 1 of the 2 men who reached the highest amount tested. The serious harms are known only from single-patient reports published one at a time, with no count of users to turn them into a rate: three published cases of a sustained painful erection needing hospital treatment, one of which required surgery and one of which had not recovered erectile function at four weeks; one case of muscle breaking down into the blood with kidney damage after a six-fold overdose of a powder confirmed by mass spectrometry to be Melanotan II; blocked kidney arteries, which is also the commonest thing filed about the compound in the US regulator's public side-effect file; one case of swelling at the back of the brain in a young woman; and one case of ulcers at the injection sites that antibiotics did not heal. New and darkening moles are the most frequently documented consequence of all, documented in a run of published case reports; a 2017 review counted four published cases of a melanoma appearing in a mole during or shortly after melanotan use, and more have appeared since, though most of those patients also used sunbeds. Manufacturing is unregulated: vials from three online shops that all claimed 10 mg were measured at 4.32 to 8.84 mg, two of the three carried 4 to 6 per cent unidentified impurities, and a Belgian forensic laboratory measured one labelled vial at 30 per cent purity.

EffectWhat it feels likeHow often

A sustained, painful erection that will not go downSerious

This is a surgical emergency: blood becomes trapped in the penis, oxygen runs out and the tissue starts to die. In the three published cases, doctors drained the blood and injected a drug to constrict the vessels; one man needed an operation when that failed, and another still had not recovered normal erections four weeks later. It is the predictable extreme of the effect the compound is sold for.

Three published cases worldwide as of 2021, each a single patient. Nobody knows how many people inject this compound, so these three cannot be turned into a rate.

Source [07]Source [26]Source [27]

Melanoma, the dangerous form of skin cancerSerious

The reports are individual patients, and most of them also used tanning beds, which is itself a cause of melanoma — so no single case can separate the compound from the sunbed. What is not in dispute is the direction of the biology: the compound drives pigment cells to multiply, one report documented that effect switching on and off with use in a man who already had a history of melanoma, and melanoma is a cancer of pigment cells. A 2025 report describes a 22-year-old woman who used a melanotan II nasal spray and developed a melanoma of the lining of the mouth, and a 2026 report describes one patient with five separate in-situ melanomas who had used a tanning bed, melanotan and anabolic hormones. Correlation is what exists here; causation has not been established and, without any count of users, may never be.

A 2017 review counted four published case reports of a melanoma appearing in an existing mole during or shortly after melanotan use. More have been published since. There is no denominator: nobody counts users, so nobody can say whether this is above or below the ordinary rate.

Source [05]Source [09]Source [28]Source [29]

Muscle breaking down into the bloodstream, with kidney damageSerious

A 39-year-old man injected 6 milligrams — six times what he understood to be a starting dose — and two hours later had a racing heart, widened pupils, sweating, tremor and body aches. His muscle-breakdown marker climbed to 17,773 units per litre over the next twelve hours, and his kidney function worsened before recovering across three days in intensive care. The powder was analysed afterwards and confirmed to be Melanotan II, so this was not a contaminant.

One published case, one man. Not measured in any study, because no study has ever given anyone more than 0.03 milligrams per kilogram of body weight.

Source [06]

A blocked artery to the kidneySerious

The blood supply to part of a kidney is cut off, which is painful, easy to mistake for something else and potentially life-threatening. The authors of the case report suggest a clotting effect or direct toxicity to kidney tissue, and are explicit that this is a proposed explanation and not a demonstrated one.

One published case report, plus 9 reports in the US regulator's public file — 3 of kidney infarction from Sweden and 5 of kidney artery clot from Australia, which given the pattern of dates and countries look like duplicate filings of a small number of patients.

Source [19]Source [24]

Swelling at the back of the brain, with seizures and vision lossSerious

The condition is called posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome: fluid builds up in the back of the brain, causing seizures, confusion, headache, vomiting and disturbed vision, with a characteristic pattern on a brain scan. It usually reverses when whatever caused it is removed. The report is a one-page letter in a medical journal and is indexed by the US National Library of Medicine as a case report in one adult woman; the full letter is behind a paywall and could not be opened for this entry, so nothing beyond that is stated here.

One published case, a young adult woman who injected it under the skin. Not measured in any study.

Source [08]

Ulcers at the injection sitesSerious

Four ulcerating wounds appeared on her lower abdomen exactly where she had injected. Swabs grew a common skin bacterium and she was treated for that, but the wounds did not improve; the diagnosis was pyoderma gangrenosum, an inflammatory skin condition. They healed over several months on steroid treatment and left the characteristic lattice-shaped scar.

One published case, a 65-year-old woman. The authors state it had never been reported with melanotan before.

Source [21]

Feeling sick, sometimes badly

The commonest complaint and, in published accounts of what users say, a frequent reason for stopping or for injecting before going to sleep. It is short-lived. In the 1996 pilot nobody needed anti-sickness medication.

Reported at most dose levels in the 3-man pilot, and more often after Melanotan II than after the dummy injection in both erection studies. In the study in men with physical risk factors, nausea was more frequent than after the dummy injection and 4 of 19 Melanotan II injections caused severe nausea; the paper publishes no matching figure for the dummy injection.

Source [01]Source [03]

Uncontrollable stretching and yawning

An odd, distinctive effect: a bout of stretching and yawning that the 1996 investigators noticed arrived at the same time as the spontaneous erections. It is a known signature of this family of compounds acting on the brain, and it is one of the few effects that tells a user the injection has reached the brain rather than only the skin.

Reported more often after Melanotan II than after the dummy injection in both erection studies, and described in the 1996 pilot in 3 men.

Source [01]Source [02]

Drowsiness and fatigue

Graded moderate on the World Health Organization scale used at the time. The paper ends by naming 0.025 rather than 0.03 milligrams per kilogram as the single dose for any future Phase I study — a next step no published study has taken in the thirty years since.

One of the two men who reached the highest amount in the 1996 pilot, 0.03 milligrams per kilogram of body weight, and nobody below that. That is 1 man out of 3 in the only study that escalated the dose.

Source [01]

New moles, and old moles going darker

New moles appear in crops within weeks, existing moles darken and some change shape. Several reports found abnormal features under the microscope. In at least one patient the changes reversed after stopping. This is the single most frequently documented consequence of use in the medical literature, and the reason dermatologists in several countries have written to their own professions about it.

Not measured. There is no study in which anyone counted moles before and after. What exists is a run of published case reports, which a 2017 review found to be the most commonly reported complication of unregulated melanotan use.

Source [05]Source [22]Source [30]

Whatever else is in the vial

This is a category of harm that has nothing to do with the molecule. Products are made and sold outside any regulatory system, so the amount is not what the label says, the impurities are not identified and nobody is accountable for either. A published analysis of what users say also flags transmission of infectious diseases as a hazard of how the product is prepared and injected, which is a risk no pharmacology can address.

Measured directly: vials from two of three online shops contained 4.1 to 5.9 per cent unidentified impurities, and every vial contained less Melanotan II than its label claimed.

Source [10]Source [17]

These are the amounts the studies below gave their participants, and they are here as facts about those studies. They are not a recommendation, not a starting point and not a range to pick from. What a person should take, if anything, is a question for a doctor who knows them.

Dorr and colleagues 1996, the only published tanning study — 3 healthy men, alternating with salt-water injections

Injected under the skin. Starting at 0.01 milligrams per kilogram of body weight, raised in steps of 0.005 to 0.03 in two men and 0.025 in the third.

Injections on alternating days, Monday to Friday, for two consecutive weeks; skin colour measured a week after the last dose.

Source [01]

Wessells and colleagues 1998 — erections in 10 men with no physical cause found, against a dummy injection

A single injection under the skin of 0.025 milligrams per kilogram of body weight, compared with an injection of the carrier liquid alone.

Single doses, with penile rigidity recorded continuously for six hours after each.

Source [02]

Wessells and colleagues 2000 — erections and desire in 10 men with physical risk factors, against a dummy injection

0.025 milligrams per kilogram of body weight under the skin, given twice, against the carrier liquid given twice.

Four separate single doses per man, six hours of recording after each.

Source [03]

What people report

• How dark it makes anyone, and for how long — the only tanning study had three participants and measured them once, a week after the last dose.
• Whether the tan it produces protects against sunburn or skin cancer at all: never tested with this molecule in a person.
• How many people use it, which is the missing number that makes every case report impossible to turn into a risk.
• Whether it causes melanoma or merely makes existing moles more visible — the published cases nearly all involve sunbeds as well.
• What happens after two weeks: no published study has given anyone Melanotan II for longer than that.
• How long it stays in a person's blood — the only pharmacokinetic studies were in rats and rabbits.
• What it does in women: every published human study enrolled adult men only.
• What it does in pregnancy or breastfeeding: never studied, in any species reported here.
• What it does in anyone under 18, despite case reports describing patients in their early twenties.
• Whether the nausea fades with repeated use, which forums assert and no study has measured.
• Whether a nasal spray delivers anything at all: no published human study has used that route.
• How much it changes appetite or body weight in a person: reduced appetite was reported, but nobody has weighed anyone or measured what they ate.
• What it does to blood pressure over time, in a compound whose one overdose report featured a racing heart and widened pupils.
• Why a small number of users have had kidney arteries block: the proposed clotting explanation has never been tested.
• Whether the sexual effect persists with repeated use or fades, since every erection study gave single doses.
• What it does to sexual function in women, where its close relative bremelanotide is an approved medicine and Melanotan II has never been tested.
• Whether the impurities measured in shop-bought vials are harmful, since nobody has identified what they are.
• How the amounts circulating online compare with the 0.025 milligrams per kilogram used in the two erection studies, because no one has published what a shop-bought dose actually delivers.
• Whether stopping reverses the mole changes in everyone, or only in the one patient in whom that was documented.

Does Melanotan 2 work?

For going darker: probably, on very thin evidence. The only published tanning study injected three healthy men for two weeks and two of the three got measurably darker skin, with the third unchanged. For erections: yes, and this is the better-tested part — in two placebo-controlled studies in 20 men, an injection produced about 38 to 45 minutes of near-full rigidity within six hours, against about 2 to 3 minutes after a dummy injection. Nothing else people buy it for has ever been measured in a person.

Source [01]Source [02]Source [03]

Is Melanotan 2 legal?

It is not an approved medicine in any country, so there is nowhere it can legally be sold to you as a treatment. The UK regulator says a product containing it is a medicine wherever it meets the legal definition of one, that such a product then needs an authorisation it does not have, and that the agency has repeatedly acted to remove melanotan products from sale for over ten years. Denmark warns against use of the product because its effects and side effects have not been investigated; Sweden says selling and marketing it is illegal and advises against all use. In the United States it is an unapproved new drug: the owner of a company that sold it pleaded guilty to two federal conspiracy counts in 2015, and in 2016 the FDA proposed permanently barring him from working for any company with an approved or pending drug application.

Source [11]Source [12]Source [13]Source [18]

What are the side effects of Melanotan 2?

The common ones, from the studies, are feeling sick, a bout of stretching and yawning, reduced appetite and drowsiness — all reported more often than after a dummy injection, and all short-lived. The serious ones are known only from single-patient reports published one at a time: a painful erection that would not go down and needed hospital treatment, muscle breaking down into the blood with kidney damage, a blocked artery to a kidney, swelling at the back of the brain, and ulcers at the injection sites. New and darkening moles are the most frequently documented consequence of all. Because nobody counts users, none of these can be turned into an odds figure.

Source [03]Source [05]Source [06]Source [07]

Does Melanotan 2 cause skin cancer?

Nobody knows, and the honest version of that answer needs a number that does not exist. A 2017 review counted four published cases of a melanoma appearing in a mole during or shortly after melanotan use, and more have appeared since — but there is no count of how many people have injected it, so there is no way to say whether four, or forty, is more than you would expect anyway. Most of the reported patients also used sunbeds, which cause melanoma on their own. What is not in doubt is that the compound makes pigment cells multiply, and melanoma is a cancer of pigment cells.

Source [05]Source [09]Source [22]

Melanotan 1 vs Melanotan 2 — what is the difference?

They are different molecules with very different regulatory fates. Melanotan I is a straight chain and only really does one thing, darken skin; it was developed properly, is now called afamelanotide, and has been an approved medicine in the European Union since December 2014 under the name Scenesse, as an implant for a rare condition that makes light unbearably painful. Melanotan II is a ring, presses four different melanocortin switches instead of one, and therefore also causes erections, nausea and appetite loss — and it has never been approved anywhere, for anything.

Source [05]Source [25]Source [31]

Melanotan 2 vs PT-141 (bremelanotide) — what is the difference?

Bremelanotide, sold as Vyleesi, is essentially Melanotan II with the very end of the molecule changed, and it is what happened when the sexual effect was developed properly instead of sold online. It is approved by the US regulator for low sexual desire in premenopausal women, with a label anyone can read. Melanotan II keeps the pigment effect that bremelanotide largely dropped, which is why one is a tanning product on the internet and the other is a prescription medicine.

Source [06]Source [32]Source [33]

Can you buy Melanotan 2?

It is sold online as a freeze-dried powder and as a nasal spray, and regulators in several countries have spent more than a decade removing sellers without stopping the trade. What arrives is a separate question from what is ordered. Vials from three online shops that all claimed 10 milligrams were measured at 4.32 to 8.84 milligrams, two of the three carried unidentified impurities of 4 to 6 per cent, and a Belgian forensic laboratory measured one labelled vial at 30 per cent purity. This register does not link to sellers or list prices.

Source [10]Source [11]Source [20]

Does the Melanotan 2 nasal spray work?

No published study has ever tested a nasal spray of Melanotan II in a person, so there is no evidence that it does anything, and no evidence about how much of a dose gets in. Every published human study injected it under the skin. Nasal sprays are nonetheless widely sold, and the UK regulator has noted that where a nasal tanning spray makes no medical claims it will not generally be treated as a medicine at all — which is a gap in regulation rather than a verdict on safety. A 2025 case report describes a 22-year-old woman who used a melanotan II nasal spray and developed a melanoma of the lining of her mouth.

Source [01]Source [11]Source [28]

Does Melanotan 2 protect you from sunburn?

Nobody has tested that with Melanotan II in a person. The closest published evidence is for the other molecule: in trials of melanotan I, the men and women given the compound before UV-B light to the neck had 47 per cent fewer sunburn-damaged cells at the irradiated site than the comparison, and in a separate arm the sunlight-only comparison group needed 50 per cent more sun-exposure time to tan as much as the melanotan I group. That was melanotan I, in trials at a university, and it does not transfer. Being darker is also not the same as being protected, and several of the published melanoma reports describe people who used a sunbed alongside the injections.

Source [05]Source [34]

Is Melanotan 2 banned in sport?

Yes, though not by name. The 2026 World Anti-Doping Agency prohibited list does not mention melanotan anywhere in its text. It does not need to: section S0 prohibits, at all times, any pharmacological substance that is not covered by a later section and has no current approval by any government health authority for human use. Melanotan II is approved nowhere, so it is caught by that definition — the same route by which BPC-157 is banned, except that BPC-157 is also named as an example and melanotan II is not.

Source [12]Source [14]

Why is there no sequence shown for Melanotan 2?

Because the standard one-letter code cannot describe this molecule, and writing one anyway would describe a different one. Melanotan II breaks that code five separate ways: it contains norleucine, which is not one of the twenty standard building blocks and has no letter; its phenylalanine is the mirror-image form; the front end carries an acetyl cap; the back end is an amide instead of a normal ending; and it is not a straight chain at all but a ring, closed between the side arms of two of its own building blocks. The register prints nothing rather than something that looks right.

Source [01]Source [15]

Are there any clinical trials of Melanotan 2 running?

Not that this register could verify. Searching the US clinical trials registry for the exact phrase "melanotan II" on 3 August 2026 returns exactly one record: a phase 2 vitiligo study posted in February 2026. Its own summary begins "This example interventional study record describes…" and its detailed description says "This example trial evaluates…", so it is not counted here as evidence that a trial exists. Everything else on this page comes from studies that finished before 2001.

Source [16]Source [35]

1. [01]Dorr RT et al. Evaluation of melanotan-II, a superpotent cyclic melanotropic peptide in a pilot phase-I clinical study. Life Sci 1996;58(20):1777-84 (3 healthy men, alternating saline/MT-II; 2 of 3 darkened) (1996)
2. [02]Wessells H et al. Synthetic melanotropic peptide initiates erections in men with psychogenic erectile dysfunction: double-blind, placebo controlled crossover study. J Urol 1998;160(2):389-93 (10 men; 38.0 vs 3.0 min tip rigidity >80%) (1998)
3. [03]Wessells H et al. Effect of an alpha-melanocyte stimulating hormone analog on penile erection and sexual desire in men with organic erectile dysfunction. Urology 2000;56(4):641-6 (10 men; 45.3 vs 1.9 min; 12/19 vs 1/21 injections) (2000)
4. [04]Wessells H et al. Melanocortin receptor agonists, penile erection, and sexual motivation: human studies with Melanotan II. Int J Impot Res 2000;12 Suppl 4:S74-9 (the two studies pooled, 20 men; desire 13/19 vs 4/21 placebo) (2000)
5. [05]Habbema L et al. Risks of unregulated use of alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone analogues: a review. Int J Dermatol 2017;56(10):975-980 (four published melanoma case reports; conclusive evidence lacking) (2017)
6. [06]Nelson ME, Bryant SM, Aks SE. Melanotan II injection resulting in systemic toxicity and rhabdomyolysis. Clin Toxicol 2012;50(10):1169-73 (one 39-year-old man; CPK peak 17,773 IU/L; product confirmed by mass spectrometry) (2012)
7. [07]Mallory CW, Lopategui DM, Cordon BH. Melanotan tanning injection: a rare cause of priapism. Sex Med 2021;9(1):100298 (one patient, surgical decompression; states priapism reported twice before) (2021)
8. [08]Kaski D et al. Melanotan and the posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome. Ann Intern Med 2013;158(9):707-8 (indexed as a case report; MeSH records one adult female, subcutaneous injection, MRI) (2013)
9. [09]Hjuler KF, Lorentzen HF. Melanoma associated with the use of melanotan-II. Dermatology 2014;228(1):34-6 (one 20-year-old woman, 3-4 weeks of self-injection alongside sunbed use) (2014)
10. [10]Breindahl T et al. Identification and characterization by LC-UV-MS/MS of melanotan II skin-tanning products sold illegally on the Internet. Drug Test Anal 2015;7(2):164-72 (vials labelled 10 mg contained 4.32-8.84 mg; impurities 4.1-5.9%) (2015)
11. [11]MHRA, Freedom of Information response 21/1237 (20 December 2021): 13 Yellow Card reports for melanotan II between 2011 and 2021; MHRA has repeatedly acted to remove melanotan products from sale for over 10 years (2021)
12. [12]Lægemiddelstyrelsen (Danish Medicines Agency), Advarsel mod produktet Melanotan (8 August 2008) — not approved in Denmark, Europe or the USA; effects and side effects not investigated (in Danish) (2008)
13. [13]FDA, Proposal to debar Edward Manookian, Docket No. FDA-2015-N-4169 (5 August 2016) — Melanotan II marketed as an unapproved new injectable tanning drug; 2007 warning letter; guilty plea 2015; permanent debarment proposed (2016)
14. [14]WADA: World Anti-Doping Code International Standard – Prohibited List 2026, section S0 (non-approved substances, prohibited at all times; in force 1 January 2026). Downloaded and text-searched 3 August 2026: no occurrence of melanotan, melanocortin, bremelanotide or afamelanotide (2026)
15. [15]PubChem CID 92432, Melanotan II (CAS 121062-08-6) — C50H69N15O9, 1024.2 g/mol; IUPAC name showing acetylated norleucine, R-configured phenylalanine, terminal carboxamide and the hexaazacyclotricosane ring
16. [16]ClinicalTrials.gov API v2, exact-phrase query for "melanotan II": totalCount 1 (checked 3 August 2026). The single record, NCT07437560, describes itself in its own brief summary as "This example interventional study record"
17. [17]Gilhooley E, Daly S, McKenna D. Melanotan II user experience: a qualitative study of online discussion forums. Dermatology 2021;237(6):995-999 (623 entries, 205 contributors, UK and Ireland forums 2016-2017) (2021)
18. [18]Läkemedelsverket (Swedish Medical Products Agency), question and answer on Melanotan 2 and health risks — "Melanotan 2 är olagligt att sälja och marknadsföra i Sverige"; the agency advises against all use
19. [19]openFDA adverse event API, product name "MELANOTAN" — 9 reports in total: 3 renal infarct (Sweden, May–June 2020), 5 renal artery thrombosis (Australia, 2025–2026, all co-reporting testosterone), 1 hepatotoxicity (Great Britain, 2013)
20. [20]Deville M, Charlier C. Analysis of a melanotan II sample seized in Belgium — the labelled vial measured at 30% purity, J Forensic Sci 2024 (2024)
21. [21]Dickson S, Hlaing Htwe Y. Pyoderma gangrenosum at melanotan II injection sites, Cureus 2025 — ulcers that did not improve on flucloxacillin and healed over several months on topical treatment (2025)
22. [22]Cardones and Grichnik, alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone-induced eruptive nevi (Archives of Dermatology) — one 40-year-old man, moles regressed after stopping (2009)
23. [23]Bonchev, changes in oral mucosa associated with Melanotan II injections: a case report (Life) — one patient, 64 days of injections, three-month follow-up, free full text (2026)
24. [24]Peters and colleagues, Melanotan II: a possible cause of renal infarction — review of the literature and case report (CEN Case Reports, free full text) (2020)
25. [25]IUPHAR/BPS Guide to Pharmacology, ligand 1323 (melanotan-II) — full agonist at human MC1, MC3, MC4 and MC5 receptors
26. [26]Dreyer, Amer and Fraser, melanotan-induced priapism: a hard-earned tan (BMJ Case Reports, free full text) — one patient, no recovery of erectile function at 4 weeks (2019)
27. [27]Devlin, Pomerleau and Foote, Melanotan II overdose associated with priapism (Clinical Toxicology) (2013)
28. [28]Yassin Alsabbagh, Bhujel and Singh, Melanotan II nasal spray: a possible risk factor for oral mucosal malignant melanoma? (International Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery) — one 22-year-old woman (2025)
29. [29]Vadner and Smith, five primary melanomas in situ in a patient with recent tanning bed use, melanotan exposure, and anabolic hormone use (JAAD Case Reports, free full text) (2026)
30. [30]Cousen, Colver and Helbling, eruptive melanocytic naevi following melanotan injection (British Journal of Dermatology) (2009)
31. [31]European Medicines Agency, Scenesse (afamelanotide) — authorised in the EU on 22 December 2014 for erythropoietic protoporphyria (2014)
32. [32]FDA label for VYLEESI (bremelanotide) injection, NDA 210557 — indicated for acquired, generalised hypoactive sexual desire disorder in premenopausal women
33. [33]PubChem CID 9941379, bremelanotide — C50H68N14O10, against Melanotan II's C50H69N15O9
34. [34]Dorr and colleagues, effects of a superpotent melanotropic peptide in combination with solar UV radiation on tanning of the skin in human volunteers (Archives of Dermatology) — melanotan-1, not melanotan II (2004)
35. [35]ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT07437560, Melanotan II as an adjunct to NB-UVB phototherapy in stable nonsegmental vitiligo — brief summary and detailed description both describe the record as an example (2026)