Biosynthetic methionyl human growth hormones is biologically active in adult man.

The acute effects of synthetic methionyl human growth hormone produced by recombinant DNA technology were compared with those of pituitary human growth hormone in 22 healthy male volunteers. Both caused increases in somatomedin and triglycerides and decreases in blood urea nitrogen and cholesterol. By all indices measured, synthetic methionyl human growth hormone was equipotent with pituitary human growth hormone. The ability to make biologically active synthetic human growth hormone creates an essentially unlimited supply of growth hormone for the treatment of hypopituitarism and for the study of additional therapeutic indications.