← All compounds · evidence tier first, by design
| Use | E1 | E2 | E3 | E4 | E5 | E6 | E7 | E8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| E3 Anxiety disorders | E3 | |||||||
| E6 Cognitive enhancement (memory, attention) | E6 | |||||||
| E6 Stroke | E6 |
Selank
TKPRPGP
Heptapeptide: the immune peptide tuftsin (Thr-Lys-Pro-Arg) extended with Pro-Gly-Pro at the C-terminus for stability.
Also: Selank acetate, Thr-Lys-Pro-Arg-Pro-Gly-Pro · Codes: TP-7
A synthetic seven-amino-acid peptide made by adding a Pro-Gly-Pro tail to tuftsin, a short peptide derived from an antibody fragment. It was developed in Russia as an anti-anxiety agent, and its clinical literature is almost entirely Russian. It is sold online elsewhere as a research chemical with claims for anxiety, focus and memory. No approved medicine contains it in any jurisdiction checked for this record.
- US C gray market
- EU C gray market
- UK ? not verified
- CA C gray market
- AU ? not verified
- JP ? not verified
- CN ? not verified
01Regulatory status, by jurisdiction
| Jurisdiction | Status | Detail and primary source |
|---|---|---|
| US | Not approved | No FDA-approved application: openFDA Drugs@FDA returns no application with a selank active ingredient (query: products.active_ingredients.name:SELANK*). openFDA states its data are unvalidated.“No matches found!”openFDA Drugs@FDA API (FDA) · retrieved 2026-10-10 |
| US | Not approved | Selank acetate (TP-7) appears on FDA's list of bulk drug substances previously in Category 2 (significant safety risks) of the compounding interim policy whose nominations were withdrawn by the nominators. FDA's safety statement remains on the page.“Compounded drugs containing selank acetate may pose risk for immunogenicity for certain routes of administration due to the potential for aggregation and peptide-related impurities. FDA lacks important information regarding any safety issues raised by selank acetate administered to humans.”Certain Bulk Drug Substances for Use in Compounding that May Present Significant Safety Risks (content current as of 04/22/2026) · retrieved 2026-10-10 |
| EU | Not approved | No product containing selank appears in EMA's downloadable medicines dataset (generated 10 Oct 2026), which covers centrally authorised medicines, refusals and withdrawn applications. National authorisations were not checked individually.“This includes information on marketing authorisations of centrally authorised medicines and post-authorisation procedures.”Download medicine data | European Medicines Agency (EMA) · retrieved 2026-10-10 |
| CA | Not approved | Queries of Health Canada's Drug Product Database API for the active ingredient and brand name selank returned no products on the retrieval date.“Search by drug identification number”Drug Product Database online query · retrieved 2026-10-10 |
| UK AU JP CN | Not yet verified from a primary source. No status is shown rather than an unsourced one. | |
02What the human evidence shows
Anxiety disorders
n/c: not counted here; see the cited review.
Three small Russian clinical studies were identified, none placebo-controlled. In 62 patients with generalised anxiety disorder or neurasthenia, selank and the benzodiazepine medazepam had similar anxiolytic effects. In 60 patients with anxiety and somatoform disorders, selank was compared with phenazepam. In 70 patients, adding selank to phenazepam was reported to bring an earlier response and fewer benzodiazepine side effects. PubMed indexes two of these as randomised; the designs were not verified from full texts, so the RCT count is left blank. Without placebo arms these studies cannot separate drug effect from the high placebo response typical of anxiety trials.
- [1] Similar anxiolytic effect of selank and medazepam in 62 patients with generalised anxiety disorder or neurasthenia
- [2] Anxiolytic effect reported with selank in a comparison with phenazepam in 60 patients with anxiety and somatoform disorders
- [3] Earlier response and fewer phenazepam side effects reported when selank was added to phenazepam in 70 patients with anxiety disorders
Registered-study counts: ClinicalTrials.gov intervention search “selank”, fetched 2026-10-10. Registered studies include trials of other uses; the gap between registered and reported is itself a finding.
Cognitive enhancement (memory, attention)
No human trial of any design has been published for this use.
Memory findings are from rodents: in rats given ethanol long term, selank prevented memory and attention impairment in an object-recognition test and prevented an ethanol-induced rise in hippocampal BDNF. No human trial with cognitive performance as an outcome in healthy people was identified; one anxiety trial above used attention tests as secondary measures in patients also taking phenazepam.
- [4] Prevented ethanol-induced memory and attention impairment in an object-recognition test in rats
Registered-study counts: ClinicalTrials.gov intervention search “selank”, fetched 2026-10-10. Registered studies include trials of other uses; the gap between registered and reported is itself a finding.
Stroke
No human trial of any design has been published for this use.
One small rat study of experimental intracerebral haemorrhage (five animals per group) reported better functional recovery with selank without an effect on haematoma volume or swelling. No human study of selank in stroke was identified.
- [5] Improved functional recovery without change in haematoma volume in a rat model of intracerebral haemorrhage
Registered-study counts: ClinicalTrials.gov intervention search “selank”, fetched 2026-10-10. Registered studies include trials of other uses; the gap between registered and reported is itself a finding.
03Safety signals
There are no adequate human safety data. The absence of reported harm is not evidence of safety.
04What is unknown
- Sport status is not given: selank is not named on the 2026 WADA Prohibited List, and whether class S0 applies depends on whether any governmental health authority has approved it, which this record did not verify from a regulator source outside the tracked jurisdictions
- No placebo-controlled trial of selank in any anxiety disorder was identified
- No human trial of cognitive performance in healthy people was identified
- No systematic human safety data were identified; FDA states it lacks important information on safety issues raised by selank acetate administered to humans
- Long-term effects of repeated use, including dependence or withdrawal, are not described in the sources reviewed
- Status in the UK, Australia, Japan and China was not verified from regulator sources for this record
05Product quality
No independent purity results have been published for this compound yet. The purity programme will publish full methods and vendor-named results, passes and failures, once its protocol has had legal review.
06Citations
- [Efficacy and possible mechanisms of action of a new peptide anxiolytic selank in the therapy of generalized anxiety disorders and neurasthenia]. (2008). PMID 18454096
- [A comparison of the anxiolytic effect and tolerability of selank and phenazepam in the treatment of anxiety disorders]. (2014). PMID 25176261
- Optimization of the treatment of anxiety disorders with selank (2015). doi:10.17116/jnevro20151156133-40
- Selank, Peptide Analogue of Tuftsin, Protects Against Ethanol-Induced Memory Impairment by Regulating of BDNF Content in the Hippocampus and Prefrontal Cortex in Rats (2019). doi:10.1007/s10517-019-04588-9
- [Experimental hemorrhagic stroke: the study of neuropeptides (MIF, selank) in the intraperitoneal injection]. (2009). PMID 20873405
Every DOI is resolved against Crossref and every NCT number against ClinicalTrials.gov, title for title, before publication. Regulatory sources are cited inline above with a verbatim quote and retrieval date.
07Mechanism
Selank is a stabilised analogue of tuftsin; in rodent and cell studies it altered expression of genes involved in GABA signalling and inflammation and changed brain BDNF levels.
Mechanism is placed last on purpose: a plausible mechanism is not evidence that a compound works in people.
Reviewed by OSMF research team (AI-assisted, source-verified) on 2026-10-10. Found an error? It goes in the corrections log: report it.