Origins
When was Semax created?
Semax came out of a Soviet programme with a consistent method: take a short fragment of a larger natural molecule, then bolt a Pro-Gly-Pro tail onto it so enzymes cannot get at it.
The short answer
| Date | The 1980s |
| Who | The Institute of Molecular Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences |
| Where | Moscow |
| Origin | Designed, not found — it does not occur naturally in this form. |
Where it came from
The fragment in Semax’s case is residues 4 to 10 of adrenocorticotropic hormone — a seven-residue stretch of a hormone that is thirty-nine residues long. On its own that fragment does not last; the addition of proline-glycine-proline at the C-terminus is what makes it a usable molecule rather than an interesting one.
That Pro-Gly-Pro tail is the programme’s signature. It appears again on Selank, built from an entirely different parent molecule, which is the clearest evidence that these compounds are siblings by method rather than by structure.
Development ran through the 1980s and registration in Russia followed in the 1990s. Most of the literature is in Russian, which is the main practical reason the compound is less discussed in English-language sources than its age would suggest.
Why it is called that
A contraction from the programme, not an acronym with an expansion worth reporting.
Where it stands now
Semax is a registered medicine in Russia and some neighbouring countries. It is not approved in New Zealand, the European Union or the United States.
What this page does not say
Nothing above is a statement about what Semax does in a body, and none of it is guidance on use. A compound’s history is a record of laboratories and dates; it is not evidence for anything, and the fact that a programme was looking for something is not a finding that it was found.
More on Semax
What is Semax? · The full timeline · Semax — sizes and prices
