Page last checked 2026-08-13

Research compound · not FDA-approved

Semax

Semax is a peptide seven amino acids long, copied from a short stretch of a stress hormone. It carries none of that hormone’s own activity.

What matters first

Why people look it up: It is sold as a nootropic, for focus, memory and recovery after a stroke.
What the evidence shows: In Russia it is a registered prescription medicine given as nasal drops. Stroke patients there have received it for thirty years. That work is Russian-language, and none of it was ever registered as a trial. The clearest published result is a negative one, in 27 people with motor neuron disease.
Dose status: Semax is not FDA-approved, so no dosing label exists for it. The sections below explain what researchers tested and what remains unknown.

Evidence snapshot

Foreign approval or limited human data

The fastest way to see what kind of evidence this page is built on.

Regulation: Not FDA-approvedNo US prescribing label
Dose source: Human study2 reported dose rows
Safety evidence: 1 listed safety findingCommon and serious effects shown apart
Sources: 3 cited sourcesMedical review complete · 2026-08-13

Open the shareable evidence image

Semax at a glance: foreign approval or limited human data, dosing basis, regulatory status, safety coverage, and cited-source count. These details summarize the available sources; they are not treatment recommendations.

Further down: research and dosing details · how good the evidence is · questions

Medically reviewed by Jennifer Montecillo, MD · non-practicing medical reviewerReviewed 2026-08-13open the primary sources

What is known about Semax

Semax is a seven-amino-acid peptide built from a short piece of adrenocorticotropic hormone with a three-residue tail added to stop the body breaking it down. It carries no hormone activity of its own. In Russia it is a registered prescription medicine, sold as nasal drops at two strengths, and it has been given to stroke patients there since the 1990s. Outside Russia it is approved nowhere, and no trial of it has ever been registered.

Semax research and regulatory details: evidence quality, approval status, doses, handling, and presentation.
Topic	Value
Strongest source	limited human data
FDA approval	Not FDA-approved
Studied dosing	6 mg a day, in two courses of ten days separated by twenty days (110 patients at different stages after an ischemic stroke, mean age 58; the study also reported a brain-growth-factor marker in the blood rising alongside recovery scores) — from clinical trials
Studied dosing	12 mg a day as a 1% solution, in two courses of ten days two weeks apart (27 patients; the report calls itself open-label. It states that Semax did not change the course of the disease, with a difference showing only on a quality-of-life total) — from clinical trials
Typical vials	10 mg · 30 mg

Every row links back to a source listed below. These facts are for reference, not a personal recommendation.

What the evidence for Semax is

People have received this compound in a documented setting, or it has approval outside the United States. The available human evidence is still too limited to show a clear dose-and-result pattern for US use.

limited human data

What it establishes: It shows that people have received it and that some human information exists.
What it does not establish: It does not prove that the same dose is appropriate in the United States or that uncommon and long-term risks are known.

Check the country, study size and reason it was used. Do not treat limited human data as an FDA-approved schedule.

Where Semax is in clinical trials

No trial of this compound is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov.

That is worth sitting with. Nobody has registered a study to find out whether Semax works in people, so no result is coming and no date is worth waiting for. Sellers are not waiting for that work either.

A registered study means a sponsor filed a plan and started enrolling. It is not evidence the drug works, and most drugs tested in people never reach a pharmacy. Sponsors write and update these sources themselves; the National Library of Medicine publishes them without checking them.

ClinicalTrials.gov · retrieved 2026-08-23

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Regulatory status

Russia’s State Register of Medicines lists two Semax registrations in force, both nasal drops in a 3 mL vial, one at 0.1% and one at 1%, and both prescription-only.

The line goes back to registrations first granted in December 2006. It is classed there as a nootropic. The vials sold elsewhere are a form that registration says nothing about.

FDA has approved nothing under this name. No Semax study appears on ClinicalTrials.gov, and the indexed literature holds no systematic review and no meta-analysis. The one paper indexed as a randomized trial describes itself as open-label.

Full regulatory tracker →

Where to go next on Semax

The schedule, the side effects and the mixing math each have their own page.

Which semax reactions warrant medical attention

No boxed warning applies to semax, which reflects the review it has not had.

The semax reconstitution math, shown rather than hidden

No use-by period has been published for semax, so the tool reports none.

Mixing a 10 mg semax vial, water volume by water volume

What each bacteriostatic-water volume does to a 10 mg semax vial, in mg/mL and units.

What each water volume does to the 30 mg semax vial

Every option for the 30 mg semax vial, with an example draw on a U-100 barrel.

Where semax sits among the anxiety and depression compounds

2 compounds people take for anxiety and depression, and what each was measured against, with semax as one example

Take the semax arithmetic to any other vial

Concentration, units per draw and draws per vial, including Semax

Where semax sits among the dose schedules

2 of 36 pages carry a labeled schedule and 28 carry none, with semax as one example

Which compounds are still in trials besides semax

Compounds with no registered trial are counted as exactly that, including semax

Semax in the regulatory changelog

A proceeding with no published outcome is entered as exactly that, including semax

Where semax sits among the source-checked pages

See the strongest source available for every compound, with semax as context

Safety notes

Both quantities on this page went into the nose. This site models injection under the skin, and no published human study of this peptide used that route
The clinical literature is Russian-language. The quantities here are read from the English abstracts attached to those papers, not from the papers themselves
The most widely repeated figures for Semax are 12 mg and 18 mg a day. They come from a 1997 study of 30 stroke patients. That abstract never says how the peptide was given, so they are left off this page
The best-documented human result is a negative one: in 27 people with motor neuron disease it did not change the course of the disease
No Semax trial has ever been registered on ClinicalTrials.gov, and the indexed literature holds no systematic review and no meta-analysis
There is no published systematic safety dataset, no long-term human safety data and no dose-ranging toxicity study
One study reported bursts of abnormal electrical activity on brain recordings and told clinicians to monitor the brain during the first dose
A review by the group that designed the peptide describes no reported adverse effects in its own fifteen-year program. That is not an independent safety finding
The registered Russian medicine is nasal drops in a 3 mL vial. Powder sold in vials by research-chemical sellers is a different product, and no regulator has examined what is in it
Russia’s register files it under the code for nootropics and other psychostimulants. The holder is a Moscow company, Peptogen, and both strengths in force are prescription only
The two registrations cover a 3 mL bottle at 0.1% and a 3 mL bottle at 1%. Reaching the daily quantities on this page needs the stronger of the two
Nothing published pairs the powder sold in research vials with any human quantity. Every amount here belongs to a licensed nasal product made by somebody else
The US side-effect report database holds a single record under this name. That reflects the fact that it is not sold there. It says nothing about whether it is safe

Questions about Semax

Is Semax FDA-approved?

No. There is no prescribing label for it, so no approved dose exists — the regulatory status section above has the detail.

How is Semax taken?

By a nasal spray, a day, in two courses of ten days separated by twenty days.

How does Semax differ from the other compounds in this class?

Semax has been studied in people, but it works through a different system from GLP-1 and amylin drugs. Its doses and results are not directly comparable with theirs.

What is not known about Semax?

It does not prove that the same dose is appropriate in the United States or that uncommon and long-term risks are known.

3primary sources, each with the day we read it — open the documents used on this page