Sermorelin is marked off-label rather than research. What is the distinction?

Sermorelin carries off-label where most of the hormones category carries research. Practical difference?

Large, actually.

Off-label means it is an approved medicine being prescribed for something other than its licensed indication. That is legal, routine, and happens constantly across all of medicine. There is a prescriber, a pharmacy, a manufacturer under inspection, and somebody accountable.

Research means there is no approval at all and no prescriber in the picture.

So off-label puts you inside the system with a clinician exercising judgement. Research puts you outside it. Those are not neighbouring points on a scale.

That is a much bigger gap than the two words suggest side by side on a card.