Semax

What it is claimed to help

These are the uses attached to Semax in research, clinical practice, or marketing. Listing a claim is not endorsing it — tap any of them to see every other compound carrying the same claim.

What the human evidence actually is

Depends entirely on which literature you accept. Semax is a registered medicine in Russia for stroke, cognitive disorders and optic nerve conditions, supported by Russian clinical studies. Those studies are largely unavailable in Western databases, often small, and rarely double-blind by contemporary standards. There are no Western randomised trials. FDA staff cited exactly this evidence gap in their July 2026 briefing; the advisory panel recommended it for the compounding list anyway, 8-5.

How it is supposed to work

Analogue of ACTH(4-10) with the melanocortin/steroidogenic activity removed. Proposed to raise BDNF and NGF expression in the hippocampus and modulate dopaminergic and serotonergic tone.

Safety

Nasal irritation reported. No Western safety database. Long-term effects unstudied.

Storage and handling

Lyophilised peptide is generally stored at 2–8 °C, or below −20 °C for long-term storage. Reconstituted in bacteriostatic water (0.9% benzyl alcohol) a solution is typically treated as usable for about 28 days refrigerated, versus roughly 24 hours for plain sterile water, which has no preservative. Add the water slowly down the vial wall and swirl — never shake, which shears peptide chains and foams the solution.