F tier · safety concern
Not one PubMed-indexed publication anywhere names Ovagen as a peptide, PubChem holds no record under the name, ClinicalTrials.gov returns zero studies, and the originator's own product is a liver-derived 'peptide complex AC-3' sold as a food supplement rather than a defined synthetic peptide.
ovagen
Ovagen is sold on the research-peptide market as a Khavinson short-peptide bioregulator for the liver and gastrointestinal tract, with vendors and the Russian distributor network giving the sequence Glu-Asp-Leu. The organ attribution is settled — the originating institute's own Cytogens page lists Ovagen for 'liver and gastrointestinal tract', not the ovary, despite the name — but the chemistry is not: no publication, chemical register or regulatory document assigns Ovagen a sequence. The manufacturer's retail product declares only an undefined liver-derived peptide complex.
// we supply this one
available as a research reagent
≥ 98% HPLC · lyophilised powder · batch certificate published. Grade F above is our own and is not adjusted because we stock it.
the explanation
Ovagen is marketed as a liver peptide, not an ovary peptide, despite what the name suggests. The problem is that nobody has ever published a study on it: searching the medical literature for Ovagen as a peptide returns nothing, and there is no chemical database record for it. In Russia it is sold as a capsule food supplement made from liver tissue, while Western sellers ship a vial they label as a three-amino-acid peptide, so the two products are not obviously the same thing.
regulatory status
Russian dietary supplement; no medicinal approval anywhere; UK research reagent only
Ovagen has no marketing authorisation as a medicine in the UK, EU or US, and no MHRA, EMA or FDA assessment exists. In Russia the manufacturer explicitly labels it a БАД — a dietary supplement, not a medicine — supplied as capsules and a sublingual liquid. A ClinicalTrials.gov query for Ovagen returns zero registered studies. It is not named on the WADA Prohibited List, though an unsequenced preparation cannot be meaningfully screened for. In the UK it is neither a licensed medicine nor an authorised supplement ingredient; lawful supply is as a laboratory reagent not for human consumption.
how it works · proposed mechanism
Ovagen has no mechanism of its own in the published record. What is offered is the family template — cellular and nuclear uptake followed by tissue-specific modulation of gene expression — imported wholesale from work done on other members of the series. Because Ovagen's structure is not established, even that template cannot be applied to it.
Family template, borrowed intact
The proposed action is the standard Khavinson claim that short peptides enter the nucleus and bind promoter regions to regulate transcription. The experiments supporting that claim were run with epitalon (AEDG), pinealon (EDR) and testagen (KEDG), not with Ovagen. Nothing in the retrieved literature tests Ovagen in any system.
The liver evidence belongs to Livagen
The organotypic tissue-specificity work that underpins hepatic claims in this family used Livagen (Lys-Glu-Asp-Ala), which selectively stimulated liver explant growth alongside Cortagen, Epithalon and Vilon in their matched tissues. Ovagen does not appear in that paper or any successor. Marketing that transfers Livagen's liver result to Ovagen is presenting another molecule's data.
Two different products, one name
The Russian original is an organ-derived fraction: the label reads 'peptide complex of liver AC-3 (leucine, glutamic acid, aspartic acid)', the sublingual version described as extracted from liver tissue. Western research vendors ship a lyophilised powder described as the synthetic tripeptide Glu-Asp-Leu. These are chemically different classes of material and no document reconciles them.
Structure-activity premise untestable
The family's entire specificity argument rests on the exact residue order determining which promoters a peptide binds. With no sequence attributable to Ovagen from any peer-reviewed, regulatory or chemical-register source, no structure-activity reasoning about it is possible even in principle.
what’s reported
evidence shape
6 sourcesThe composition of the cited literature by study type. This describes the shape of the evidence, not its quality — and it does not by itself set the grade.
⚠ the catch
Ovagen is the emptiest entry in this family: there is no study of it at all. A PubMed search for 'ovagen' returns 34 records, every one of them about an unrelated commercial ovine FSH preparation used for superovulation in sheep, goats and cattle — not a single paper concerns the Khavinson peptide. PubChem has no compound record under the name, no CAS number exists, and the sequence Glu-Asp-Leu comes only from the distributor and reseller network, so sequence, formula, molar mass and CAS are all reported here as null rather than guessed. Compounding that, the two things sold as Ovagen are not the same: the manufacturer's registered product is a liver-tissue-derived 'peptide complex AC-3' food supplement in capsules, while research vendors ship a vial labelled as a synthetic tripeptide. The liver-specific data the marketing leans on were generated with Livagen, a different tetrapeptide, in a different paper.
key published findings
- The originating institute's own Cytogens listing assigns Ovagen to 'liver and gastrointestinal tract' function, resolving the liver-versus-ovary ambiguity against the ovary reading despite the product name.
- ClinicalTrials.gov contains zero registered studies of Ovagen (verified by registry query).
- Zero PubMed-indexed publications name Ovagen as a peptide; all 34 hits for the search term concern an unrelated ovine FSH veterinary preparation of the same trade name.
- PubChem returns no compound record for 'Ovagen'; the tripeptide Glu-Asp-Leu exists separately (CID 444128, C15H25N3O8, 375.37) but is not linked to the name and carries no CAS number.
- The manufacturer's label declares 'peptide complex of liver AC-3 (leucine, glutamic acid, aspartic acid)', an organ-derived fraction registered as a dietary supplement — not the defined synthetic tripeptide Western vendors sell.
- The hepatic tissue-specificity result in this family was obtained with Livagen (Lys-Glu-Asp-Ala), and Khavinson's own 2014 review of clinical results for the group's bioregulators does not mention Ovagen at all.
limitations of the evidence
- Molecular identity unresolved: sequence, formula, molar mass and CAS all reported null because no authoritative source assigns them.
- No published study of any kind — no in vitro, no animal, no human — could be located for the Khavinson product.
- The name collides with a long-established veterinary FSH product, so literature and safety searches on 'Ovagen' return systematically irrelevant results.
- The Russian retail product and the Western research vial are different classes of material, and no analytical document reconciles them.
- Ovagen shares no independent evidence base with the rest of this family; the mechanistic literature cited for it belongs to epitalon, pinealon, testagen and Livagen, and those shared papers are not independent support for this compound.
- Manufacturer claims of clinical benefit in hepatitis and cancer patients are made on a retail page with no citation, publication or registry entry behind them.
documented safety signals
- No documented safety signals, and no toxicology, pharmacovigilance or human safety data of any kind were located.
- Absence of reported harm reflects absence of monitored exposure, not evidence of safety.
- Unverifiable identity is itself the safety concern: with no reference structure, no CAS and two different product classes marketed under one name, the contents of a vial labelled Ovagen cannot be confirmed by any purchaser.
identity
| full name | Ovagen (Khavinson liver/gastrointestinal 'bioregulator'; no sequence verifiable from any authoritative source) |
| category | Other |
| modality | peptide |
laboratory handling
| storage | Lyophilised powder is stored desiccated at -20 °C and protected from light. Once reconstituted, laboratory practice is refrigeration at 2-8 °C for short-term use, or aliquoting and freezing to avoid repeated freeze-thaw cycles. Handling information only; this material has no approved human use. |
| solubility | Short hydrophilic peptide, readily soluble in sterile or bacteriostatic water and in dilute aqueous buffer. Lot-specific solubility is stated on the certificate of analysis. |
Handling information describes laboratory practice for a research reagent. It is not a preparation guide for use in humans.
the receipts
6 citedSt Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology · 2026 · official
NPCRIZ (manufacturer product page) · 2026 · official
PubChem, NCBI · 2026 · official
ClinicalTrials.gov, US National Library of Medicine · 2026 · official
Advances in Gerontology · 2014 · review
Bulletin of Experimental Biology and Medicine · 2001 · preclinical
others in Other