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What it is
A synthetic heptapeptide derived from tuftsin, an immunomodulatory fragment of immunoglobulin G, with a stabilising extension. Developed in Russia and used there clinically, administered intranasally.
How it is proposed to work
Proposed anxiolytic action through effects on GABAergic and monoaminergic signalling and on enkephalin degradation, without the sedation, dependence or withdrawal associated with benzodiazepines. That comparison is the central clinical claim made for it.
Approved medical uses
Used in Russia for anxiety and adjustment disorders. Not approved in the US, EU or India.
Human research
Each entry states what the study found and, separately, what it cannot show.
- Controlled human trial2008n = 62
Selank compared with medazepam in generalised anxiety disorder and neurasthenia
Finding. Sixty-two patients with generalised anxiety disorder and neurasthenia were studied, with selank (30 patients) compared against the benzodiazepine medazepam (32 patients) and assessed on the Hamilton, Zung and CGI scales. On the anxiolytic endpoint the report states: "The anxiolytic effects of both drugs were similar but selank had also antiasthenic and psychostimulant effects." That is a failure to detect a difference between the two groups, which in an unrandomised, unblinded comparison of roughly thirty patients per arm is a null contrast rather than demonstrated equivalence. Serum enkephalin activity was measured alongside as a biomarker: patients were reported to have a decreased level of tau(1/2) leu-enkephalin, read here as a half-life parameter, correlating with disease duration and with the severity of anxiety, asthenia and autonomic symptoms, and this parameter rose, with stronger positive correlations with anxiety level, during selank treatment mostly in the generalised anxiety subgroup. That is a pharmacodynamic observation with no demonstrated relation to clinical benefit, and the subgroup split is not stated to have been pre-specified.
Limitation. Russian-language report; the abstract describes a comparison between two treated groups but does not state that allocation was randomised or that either patients or raters were blinded, so it is typed as a controlled trial rather than an RCT. No effect sizes, confidence intervals, dosing or tolerability comparison appear in the abstract, so the claim that selank matches a benzodiazepine on anxiety cannot be sized from what is published there, and we located no replication of it outside the Russian literature. The PubMed record carries no author affiliations, so whether the trial was run by the institutes that developed selank could not be checked. One caution specific to this compound: an adversarial check found a fabricated Selank anxiety trial circulating in our research sources with complete invented figures, so any Selank trial number met elsewhere should be checked against the primary record. The benzodiazepine comparison is the most consequential claim made for this compound and the one we would most want to see reproduced independently.
Preclinical research
Animal and laboratory work. Useful for generating hypotheses; it cannot establish that something works in people.
No preclinical studies catalogued.
Potential safety concerns
- WatchPreliminary
The absence of dependence and withdrawal is the main claimed advantage over benzodiazepines. If real it matters a great deal; we could not verify it from accessible primary sources.
- CautionEstablished
Anxiety that warrants treatment warrants a clinician. Self-managing it with an unverified grey-market product delays care that works.
Known interactions and contraindication considerations
- Not well characterised in accessible literature. Interaction with other anxiolytics is unstudied.
This list is not exhaustive and is not a substitute for a clinician reviewing your full medication history.
Regulatory status
Status is shown per jurisdiction and is accurate only as of the date stated. Where a compound is approved, the approval is bound to a specific formulation, manufacturer and indication — shown in the detail column.
| Jurisdiction | Standing | Detail |
|---|---|---|
Russian Federation Ministry of Health / Roszdravnadzor | Approved as of 11 Aug 2026 | Marketed in Russia. Our check could not confirm current status against the state register itself — the certificate details in circulation come from commercial drug references, which retain entries after registrations lapse. Verify directly before relying on this. Reported indications centre on generalised anxiety and adjustment disorders. Reports that it moved to non-prescription status are manufacturer-sourced and unconfirmed. |
United States FDA | Unapproved / investigational as of 11 Aug 2026 | No marketing authorisation. The FDA has not evaluated this compound — that is an absence of any opinion, not a negative finding. |
European Union EMA | Unapproved / investigational as of 11 Aug 2026 | No marketing authorisation. |
India CDSCO | Unapproved / investigational as of 11 Aug 2026 | Not approved for human use. A first-time synthetically manufactured peptide falls under the new-drug pathway. |
How it is being used
What the grey community actually runs, the reasoning they give, and our read on whether it follows from known biology. This is observation, not evidence, and not a recommendation.
No community use documented for this compound yet. Absence here means our editorial team has not reviewed and verified a pattern — not that none exists.
Active clinical trials
No registered trials currently tracked for Selank.
What remains unknown
The questions that would change our assessment if they were answered.
- Does the benzodiazepine comparison hold under independent blinded conditions?
- Is the absence of dependence established or assumed from mechanism?
References
Editorial change history
When we change a grade or a regulatory note, we log it here rather than editing quietly.
Dossier created. A fabricated anxiety trial with full fake figures was found circulating in our research sources and excluded.
Spotted something wrong? Tell us — we publish corrections.