Selank human trials: what exists, and what every one of them compared against

Published August 28, 2026 · Artemis Labs

Selank has more human research behind it than most compounds in this category, and that research has a shape worth understanding before quoting it. Four clinical studies and one brain-imaging study appear in the published record. All were conducted in Russia, four were published in the same Russian psychiatry journal, and the author lists overlap heavily. None used a placebo control. Each compared Selank against a benzodiazepine-class drug — medazepam or phenazepam — or tested it added on top of one. A 2020 forensic paper from Belgium states, in the same period, that Selank has “not completed any clinical trials.” Both descriptions are defensible, and the difference between them is the most useful thing on this page.

Key findings

• 2008, 62 patients: “The effect of selank (30 patients) was compared to that of medazepam (32 patients).” Result: “The anxiolytic effects of both drugs were similar but selank had also antiasthenic and psychostimulant effects” (PMID 18454096).
• 2014, 60 patients: Selank against phenazepam. “Pronounced anxiolytic and mild nootropic effects of selank were demonstrated. The anxiolytic effect lasted for a week after last receiving the peptide” (PMID 25176261).
• 2015, 70 patients: An add-on design — phenazepam alone in 30, phenazepam plus Selank in 40. “The combined treatment decreased the level of undesirable side-effects of phenazepam” (PMID 26356395).
• Zero placebo-controlled trials, zero trials outside Russia, zero replications outside Russia, no meta-analysis and no systematic review appear in the retrieved record.

The studies, one at a time

2008 — Selank versus medazepam. Sixty-two patients with generalized anxiety disorder and neurasthenia were assigned to Selank or medazepam and assessed on standard psychometric scales. The authors also measured enkephalin activity in blood serum, tying the clinical work to their laboratory line of research on enzyme inhibition. Their reported result is a similarity claim — comparable anxiolytic effect, with additional antiasthenic and psychostimulant effects for Selank.

2008 — immune measures. A companion study looked at immunotropic effects in patients with anxiety-asthenic disorders, reporting in vitro suppression of IL-6 gene expression in cells from patients with depression but not in healthy controls.

2014 — Selank versus phenazepam. Sixty patients with phobic-anxiety and somatoform disorders. The notable observation is duration: the anxiolytic effect was reported to last a week after the last administration.

2015 — Selank added to phenazepam. Seventy patients. The design question was different: not whether Selank works alone, but what changes when it is added to a benzodiazepine. The reported answer concerned side effects — the combination reduced the attention and memory problems, sedation and other unwanted effects associated with phenazepam.

2020 — brain imaging. A functional connectomics study measured resting-state network connectivity in humans given Selank or Semax, and reported both shared and distinct effects on connectivity between the right amygdala and right temporal cortex. It measures brain activity, not symptoms.

Why the comparator matters more than the result

A trial that compares a new compound against an active drug answers a narrower question than a placebo-controlled trial. “Similar to medazepam” tells you the two performed alike on the scales used in that study. It does not tell you either one beat doing nothing, because nothing was not tested.

This matters more than usual here, for two reasons.

Anxiety symptoms respond strongly to placebo in clinical research generally, which is why placebo arms exist in this field. And the specific comparators are unfamiliar to most readers outside Russia and its neighbours: phenazepam and medazepam are benzodiazepines that are not approved in the United States. So “as effective as the comparator” gives a US or Western European reader no reference point they can calibrate against.

The 2015 add-on design sits differently and is arguably the most interesting of the four, because its outcome — fewer unwanted effects from the benzodiazepine — is a question an add-on design can actually answer.

The contradiction in the literature, stated plainly

In 2020, a laboratory at Sciensano, the Belgian national public health institute, analyzed seized preparations and identified Selank and Semax in them. Their paper describes the two as peptides “which, to our knowledge, have not completed any clinical trials.”

The Russian trials above exist, were published, and are indexed in the same database. So how can both stand?

Because they describe different things. Trials were run and reported. None of them is a completed clinical development program of the kind a Western regulator would recognize: no placebo control, no independent replication, no multinational phase 3, no regulatory submission in the retrieved record. A specialist writing “has not completed any clinical trials” is describing the second sense; the PubMed record documents the first.

The useful move is not to pick one. It is to say which sense you mean. A summary that cites only the Russian trials overstates the evidence; a summary that cites only the Belgian sentence erases four published studies in sixty-plus patients each.

What the research does not show

No placebo-controlled evidence of benefit exists. Every human comparison is against, or on top of, an active benzodiazepine-class drug.

No study has been replicated outside Russia, and no independent group has repeated any of these results. The overlapping authorship across the trials means they are not four independent tests so much as one continuing program.

The imaging study measured brain connectivity, not symptoms or outcomes — a mechanistic observation, not evidence of clinical effect.

And a US pharmacology review offers a blunt outside assessment worth reading alongside the trials: Selank is described as among “poorly studied Russian drugs with GABAergic mechanisms that are inexplicably sold to US consumers as dietary supplements.” That is not our framing of the compound — we supply a research reagent — but it is a published, third-party view of the evidence base, and hiding it would be the wrong call.

Frequently asked questions

How many people have taken Selank in published trials?

Roughly 190 across the four clinical studies, in groups of 30 to 40 per arm. The exact totals per arm are in the abstracts cited below.

Was Selank ever compared against placebo?

Not in any study in the retrieved record.

Is Selank approved as a medicine?

It is not FDA-approved. We do not publish claims about approval status in other jurisdictions, because none could be verified from a primary source.

Does the imaging study show Selank works?

No. It reports measurable changes in resting-state brain network connectivity. That is a mechanistic finding about brain activity, not a clinical outcome.

References

1. Zozulya AA, Neznamov GG, Siuniakov TS, Kost NV, Gabaeva MV, Sokolov OIu, et al. Zh Nevrol Psikhiatr Im S S Korsakova. 2008. PMID 18454096.
2. Uchakina ON, Uchakin PN, Miasoedov NF, Andreeva LA, Shcherbenko VE, Mezentseva MV, et al. Zh Nevrol Psikhiatr Im S S Korsakova. 2008. PMID 18577961.
3. Medvedev VE, Tereshchenko ON, Israelian AIu, Chobanu IK, Kost NV, Sokolov OIu, et al. Zh Nevrol Psikhiatr Im S S Korsakova. 2014. PMID 25176261.
4. Medvedev VE, Tereshchenko ON, Kost NV, Ter-Israelyan AY, Gushanskaya EV, Chobanu IK, et al. Zh Nevrol Psikhiatr Im S S Korsakova. 2015. PMID 26356395. DOI 10.17116/jnevro20151156133-40.
5. Vanhee C, Francotte A, Janvier S, Deconinck E. Drug Test Anal. 2020. PMID 31667971.
6. Doyno CR, White CM. J Clin Pharmacol. 2021. PMID 34396551.
7. Panikratova YR, et al. Dokl Biol Sci. 2020. PMID 32342318.

Methodology: the human record was established by retrieving every PubMed entry for Selank on August 28, 2026 and filtering on clinical-trial publication types. Patient numbers and outcomes are quoted verbatim from the published abstracts; several of these papers are published in Russian with English abstracts, and only the English abstracts were read.

All compounds sold by Artemis Labs are for laboratory research use only. Nothing on this page is medical advice, and no statement has been evaluated by the FDA.