F tier · safety concern
Europe PMC returns ten records for Vesugen and nine of them have Khavinson as an author; there is no registered trial, the sole human report is 32 patients given Vesugen or Pinealon in a Russian-language gerontology journal, and the group's flagship KED animal paper required a 2025 correction because two confocal figures presented as separate male and female datasets were in fact the same images. Vesugen is also absent from the originating group's own review of clinical results.
vesugen
Vesugen is the tripeptide Lys-Glu-Asp, marketed as a vascular ‘bioregulator’ within Khavinson's Cytogens range. Its published record is very small: molecular-docking and organotypic-culture work on endothelial and neuronal differentiation, an antihypoxia screen, a 5xFAD mouse Alzheimer's model, and one 32-patient Russian report in which it was given alongside a second peptide. No trial of Vesugen has been registered anywhere, and it does not appear in the originating group's own summary of clinical results for its peptide bioregulators.
// 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
Vesugen is three amino acids joined together, sold as a peptide for blood vessels. Almost everything published about it comes from the one Russian institute that invented it. There has never been a registered clinical trial, the only human study involved 32 patients and gave them a second peptide at the same time, and the group's main mouse study had to be corrected in 2025 because two sets of pictures presented as male and female results turned out to be identical.
regulatory status
No medicinal approval anywhere; research reagent in the UK
Vesugen holds no marketing authorisation as a medicine in the UK, EU, US or Russia, and no MHRA, EMA or FDA assessment of it exists. In Russia it is distributed as an oral capsule in the Cytogens consumer range associated with the St Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology, that is, as a supplement-category product rather than a registered pharmaceutical. A ClinicalTrials.gov search returns no registered study of Vesugen or Lys-Glu-Asp. In Great Britain it has no authorisation, is not a controlled drug, and is not an approved novel-food or food-supplement ingredient, so it is lawfully supplied here only as a laboratory research reagent. Lys-Glu-Asp is not named on the WADA Prohibited List, though the S0 unapproved-substances class is drafted to cover substances in this position.
how it works · proposed mechanism
Vesugen is assigned the same framework as the rest of the family — ultrashort peptides entering the nucleus and modulating tissue-specific gene expression — with the C-terminal aspartate supposedly directing it to vascular endothelium. The framework is generated, applied and tested almost entirely within one institute, and Vesugen sits at the thin end even of that literature.
Endothelial proliferation in culture
A 2014 Advances in Gerontology paper from the group reports epigenetic regulation of vascular endothelial cell proliferation by short peptides including KED, and later work reports docking into promoter regions of genes linked to atherosclerosis. All of this is in silico plus organotypic or cell culture; no vascular endpoint has been measured in an animal or a human.
Proposed transporter-mediated cellular entry
The group proposes that ultrashort peptides including KED are carried into cells by POT and LAT transporter families and then enter the nucleus. This is a plausible route for di- and tripeptides in principle, but it is modelling and cell-level work, with no measurement of intranuclear peptide concentration in vivo.
Neuronal and stem-cell differentiation claims
KED is reported to influence neuronal differentiation of stem cells, protect fibroblast-derived induced neurons from age-related changes, and preserve dendritic spine density in 5xFAD Alzheimer's-model mice. These findings sit oddly with the compound's marketing as vascular-specific, and they weaken rather than strengthen the tissue-specificity claim.
A corrected key animal paper
The 2021 Pharmaceuticals paper reporting KED and EDR effects in 5xFAD mice was corrected in January 2025, the authors stating that ‘Figures 5 and 8 are the same, described differently’ — the male and female confocal panels had been duplicated. The authors maintain the scientific conclusions are unaffected, but the paper had reported sex-dependent differences, and the duplicated figures were the male and female comparison.
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
Vesugen has no registered trial and, in practical terms, no human evidence: the single human report covers 32 patients with chronic multimorbidity and organic brain syndrome who received Vesugen or Pinealon, published in Russian in Advances in Gerontology, with no control arm described and no registration. Its literature is ten indexed papers, nine of them from Khavinson's own group, and it is conspicuously absent from that group's own 2013 review of clinical results for its bioregulators — which lists Thymalin, Thymogen, Vilon, Epithalamin, Prostatilen, Cortexin and Retinalamin, but not Vesugen. The most-cited animal study supporting KED, in 5xFAD Alzheimer's mice, required a correction in January 2025 after the authors confirmed that two figures presented as separate male and female datasets were the same images. The chemistry is at least verifiable — PubChem gives C15H26N4O8, 390.39 g/mol, CAS 204271-66-9 — but that is the only part of the Vesugen story that can be independently checked.
key published findings
- PubChem CID 87571363 confirms Lys-Glu-Asp as C15H26N4O8, 390.39 g/mol, CAS 204271-66-9.
- ClinicalTrials.gov contains no registered study of Vesugen or Lys-Glu-Asp.
- Europe PMC returns ten records for ‘vesugen’; nine list Khavinson as an author, and the tenth is the only human study.
- That human study — Meshchaninov and colleagues, Advances in Gerontology 2015 — enrolled 32 patients with chronic polymorbidity and organic brain syndrome and administered vesugen or pinealon, reporting slowed ‘rate of aging’ by biological-age markers rather than any clinical outcome.
- The originating group's own 2013 clinical-results review covers Timalin, Thymogen, Vilon, Epithalamin, Prostatilen, Cortexin and Retinalamin — Vesugen is absent, indicating the group itself did not claim clinical results for it.
- Khavinson and colleagues' 2021 Pharmaceuticals paper on KED and EDR in 5xFAD mice was corrected in January 2025: ‘Figures 5 and 8 are the same, described differently’, the duplicated panels being the male and female comparisons in a paper that reported sex-dependent effects.
limitations of the evidence
- No registered trial, no controlled human study, no human pharmacokinetics and no bioavailability data exist for Lys-Glu-Asp.
- Nine of the ten indexed papers come from the originating group; the tenth, the only human report, is small, Russian-language, and published in the journal most closely associated with that group.
- In the sole human study Vesugen was not tested alone against placebo but compared with another peptide from the same range, so no effect can be attributed to Vesugen specifically.
- A correction for duplicated figures in the principal supporting animal paper is a data-integrity concern in an evidence base too small to absorb it.
- Sources here are deliberately shared with the other Khavinson bioregulators in this index because these compounds are described in one common body of literature and shared reviews should not be read as independent support for each.
- The tissue-specificity claim is internally inconsistent: a compound marketed as vascular is reported by the same group to drive neuronal differentiation and protect hippocampal dendritic spines.
documented safety signals
- No safety signals are documented, and no human safety study exists — absence of reported harm reflects absence of monitored human exposure, not demonstrated safety.
- A peptide claimed to stimulate endothelial proliferation warrants explicit angiogenesis and tumour-promotion assessment; no such study was located from any laboratory.
- Research-grade material has no regulator-audited manufacturing standard, so impurity, endotoxin and peptide-content risk are unquantified.
- There is no pharmacovigilance system covering the compound in any jurisdiction.
identity
| full name | Vesugen (Lys-Glu-Asp, KED) |
| category | Other |
| modality | peptide |
| formula | C15H26N4O8 |
| molar mass | 390.39 g/mol |
| cas | 204271-66-9 |
| sequence | Lys-Glu-Asp (KED) |
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. |
| co-studied with | Vesugen is routinely sold stacked with other Cytogen peptides, and the only human report gave it in parallel with Pinealon; because these compounds share one hypothesis and one literature, stacking them multiplies exposure without adding independent evidence. |
Handling information describes laboratory practice for a research reagent. It is not a preparation guide for use in humans.
the receipts
6 citedPubChem, US National Library of Medicine · 2026 · official
ClinicalTrials.gov, US National Library of Medicine · 2026 · official
PubMed, US National Library of Medicine · 2026 · official
Pharmaceuticals · 2025 · official
Advances in Gerontology / Uspekhi Gerontologii · 2013 · review
Advances in Gerontology / Uspekhi Gerontologii · 2015 · observational
others in Other