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Research profile · Peptide

Pinealon

Also known as EDR peptide, Glu-Asp-Arg

Animal — evidence level 2 of 4: Animal evidenceExperimental — UK regulatory status: Experimental — not authorised for human use in the UK

Overview

A synthetic tripeptide from the Russian peptide bioregulator programme, with no registered clinical trials.

Category
Peptide
Highest evidence level identified
Animal evidence
Last scientifically reviewed
20 August 2026
Last regulatory review
20 August 2026

Mechanism under investigation

Pinealon is a synthetic tripeptide from the same St Petersburg peptide bioregulator programme that produced epitalon and thymalin. The proposed mechanism, advanced by that group, is that very short peptides enter cells and cell nuclei, bind histone proteins or nucleic acids, and thereby modulate gene expression in a tissue-specific manner. This peptide-DNA complementarity hypothesis originates almost entirely from within the originating group and has not been independently established.

Research areas

  • Ageing research
  • Oxidative stress models

These are fields in which the compound has been investigated. Listing a field is not a statement that anything was demonstrated within it.

Current evidence

In-vitro evidence

Cells, tissues or biochemical systems outside a living organism.

Present, and the best-evidenced tier. Work reports dose-dependent restriction of reactive oxygen species accumulation and reduced necrotic cell death in rat cerebellar granule cells and other lines, with altered signalling kinetics. Related work reports penetration of labelled short peptides into cell nuclei. Note the authorship concentration.

Animal evidence

Studies in living non-human animals.

Present. Administration to pregnant rats with diet-induced hyperhomocysteinaemia was reported to improve offspring cognitive function and increase neuronal resistance to oxidative stress. Several Russian-language rat studies report effects on behaviour and inflammatory markers in aged animals under hypoxia. Studies are mostly small and mostly published in one journal.

Human observational evidence

Studies observing people without assigning an intervention.

Very weak. No primary human study meeting ordinary reporting standards was found. Human-facing claims trace to review articles by the originating group and to broad Russian-language papers on synthetic peptides in elderly patients that do not isolate this compound. The frequently repeated claim that it improves memory in elderly patients could not be traced to an identifiable primary study with reported methods.

Clinical-trial evidence

Studies assigning an intervention to human participants.

Absent. ClinicalTrials.gov returns no studies. There is no registered, protocol-published, randomised or controlled trial in humans.

Study limitations

  • Single-source literature. Around 41 per cent of indexed records carry the programme’s founder as an author, with a further overlapping share carrying his institute’s affiliation. Independent replication by unaffiliated groups is close to absent.
  • Publication is concentrated in a small number of low-visibility, largely Russian-language journals, many indexed without abstracts or identifiers, which limits external scrutiny.
  • No registered clinical trials exist — no protocol registration, no pre-specified outcomes, no independent monitoring, and therefore no protection against selective reporting.
  • The core mechanism is a hypothesis originating from and largely tested by the same group that developed the compound.
  • The evidence does not progress up the hierarchy. Decades of laboratory and small animal work have not been followed by controlled human studies, which is itself informative.

UK regulatory context

Experimental — not authorised for human use in the UK

A compound appearing in research literature that holds no UK authorisation for human use in any indication.

Source: The Human Medicines Regulations 2012, regulation 46 — prohibition on sale or supply of an unauthorised medicinal product (opens legislation.gov.uk in a new tab) (legislation.gov.uk)

Regulatory classification is jurisdiction-specific. A compound authorised elsewhere is not thereby authorised in the UK, and a supplier’s description of a substance does not determine how it is classified in law. See safety and regulation for the framework and the authoritative sources.

Safety and interpretation

There is no meaningful human safety data: no registered trials, no controlled human studies with reported adverse event collection, and no pharmacovigilance, since it is not an authorised medicine in any identified jurisdiction. Animal studies from the originating group have not reported toxicity, but they were designed to test efficacy in small groups rather than to detect harm, and absence of reported adverse effects in such studies is not evidence of safety.

References