PepRank

NAP / Davunetide

2/10estimate

Also: AL-108 · NAPVSIPQ · ADNP fragment

CleanMemoryFocusNasal

ADNP-derived microtubule-stabilising peptide; safe in a large trial but ineffective.

NAPVSIPQ · unmodified (ADNP-derived) (8 residues)

NAPVSIPQ unmodified (ADNP-derived)

#24 of 61 research peptides · updated
Onset
Unknown; trials measured effects after 12-52 weeks.
Lasts
Short half-life; trials dosed it twice daily.
Access
Grey market
Cost / month
Unclear; few vendors list it, and trial doses (60 mg/day) would be very costly
Users report
Essentially no user reports on Reddit; no meaningful community experience to summarise. Hardly sold by grey-market vendors.
Best effects
None established in humans
Downsides
Nasal irritation (trial) · no proven benefit
Evidence
Human RCTs — Phase 2/3 in progressive supranuclear palsy, n=313, 52 weeks: well tolerated, no efficacy
Caveat
Clean safety from a large controlled trial, but nobody reports benefit. Listed only for completeness.
Typical use
Trial dose 30 mg intranasal twice daily; no community dosing.
Getting it
Rarely stocked by research-peptide vendors; never approved, and the trial program ended after the 2014 PSP failure.

Safety

Tier by safety barStrict CleanBalanced CleanEvidence only Clean

Seen harmMechanismData gapSilent harmProduct

Seen harm 0/3
Three RCTs with over 500 people found no signal: in the 313-patient, 52-week PSP trial SAEs were 54 in each arm and deaths 11 vs 10, with more dropouts for nosebleeds and congestion. Boxer et al. 2014: davunetide in progressive supranuclear palsy, phase 2/3, n=313 (Lancet Neurol, PubMed 24873720) ↗Morimoto et al. 2013: AL-108 in amnestic MCI, n=144 (PubMed 23594991) ↗Javitt et al. 2012: davunetide in schizophrenia, n=63 (PubMed 22169248) ↗
Mechanism 0/3
A microtubule-stabilising fragment of ADNP; no pathway to serious harm has been described.
Data gap 1/3
Controlled trials in over 500 people up to a year long, but it was never approved and development ended in 2014. Boxer et al. 2014: davunetide in progressive supranuclear palsy, phase 2/3, n=313 (Lancet Neurol, PubMed 24873720) ↗
Silent harm 0/3
The only harms seen, nasal irritation and nosebleeds, are immediate and obvious. Boxer et al. 2014: davunetide in progressive supranuclear palsy, phase 2/3, n=313 (Lancet Neurol, PubMed 24873720) ↗
Product 2/3
Rarely stocked, and then only as a grey-market nasal research peptide. Mendias & Awan 2026 preprint: 6,441 grey-market peptide samples, 42-71% failed quality criteria, 15% had endotoxin ↗
Never if
Pregnancy or breastfeeding (no human reproductive data)

Studies 5

Sources 1

More in Neuroprotection & repair all 10 →

  1. 1ARA-290 QEQLERALNSS (11 residues) Caution Injection≈ €180–630 / month56%positive40 reportsNon-erythropoietic EPO-derived peptide for small-fibre neuropathy pain.
  2. 2Cortexin Caution Injection≈ €36–90 / month50%positive20 reportsRussian brain-cortex extract, Cerebrolysin cousin; 10-day IM courses.Animal-brain extract given by injection: immune/allergic and theoretical prion risk, and it shares Cerebrolysin's SAE signal.
  3. 3P21 (P021) DGGL (4 residues) Caution Nasal / Oral / Injection≈ €45–180 / month43%positive15 reportsCNTF-derived neurogenic peptide from Alzheimer's mouse work; grey market only.No human safety data; deliberately drives neurogenesis via a growth-factor pathway, and products are of uncertain identity.
  4. 4Dihexa YI (2 residues) Excluded Oral / Topical / Injection≈ €13–53 / month50%positive30 reportsAngiotensin-IV analogue claimed as potent synaptogenic; hyped, not evidenced in humans.Activates the oncogenic HGF/c-Met pathway, has no human safety data, and its foundational studies are under expressions of concern.
  5. 5Humanin MAPRGFSCLLLLTSEIDLPVKRRA (24 residues) Excluded Injection43%positive1 reportsMitochondrial-derived cytoprotective peptide; anti-Alzheimer's in animals only.Its anti-apoptotic action helps glioma cells survive chemotherapy in animal studies, and there is no human data.
  6. 6FGL EVYVVAENQQGKSKA (15 residues) Excluded Nasal / Injection43%positive1 reportsNCAM mimetic that activates FGF receptors; rodent memory data only.Agonist of the mitogenic FGF receptor, with only phase-1 data and no users to learn from.
  7. 7Cerebrolysin Excluded Nasal / Injection / IV≈ €140–540 / month40%positive29 reportsPig-brain peptide mix for stroke/TBI; strong anecdotes, real safety questions.Cochrane found more non-fatal serious adverse events than placebo; animal-derived injectable with allergy/immune reaction risk.
  8. 8Corticotropin (repository ACTH gel) Excluded Injection43%positive15 reportsPituitary hormone gel approved for MS relapses; works like steroids, costs like a luxury car.Drives the adrenals to flood the body with cortisol, so it carries the corticosteroid label warnings (infection, Cushing's syndrome, adrenal insufficiency on withdrawal, GI perforation, psychosis, high blood pressure and glucose, bone loss) plus anaphylaxis. A prescription relapse treatment under a neurologist, not something to take outside one.
  9. 9Glatiramer acetate Excluded Injection37%positive24 reportsApproved MS drug made of random myelin-mimicking peptide chains; modest relapse cut, injection burden.Prescription immunomodulator for relapsing MS with an FDA boxed warning for anaphylaxis (82 cases, 6 deaths reported to 2024, some years into treatment), plus label warnings for liver injury and skin necrosis. Worth it for MS under a neurologist; not a self-directed peptide.

Sequence beads

Each bead is one amino acid in the peptide's chain, coloured by its side chain: grey for non-polar, cyan for polar, blue for positively charged and fuchsia for negatively charged. Length and mix tell related peptides apart at a glance, from a two-residue dipeptide like carnosine to a 43-residue protein like thymosin beta-4. The colours describe chemistry only and predict neither effect nor safety.

non-polarpolarpositivenegative

Report grades

Every first-hand Reddit or X report is graded on its own, from glowing through positive, mixed, nothing and negative to bad reaction, and the bar shows how those grades split. Posts that look vendor-adjacent stay on the peptide's page but are left out of the counts.

GlowingPositiveMixedNothingNegativeBad reaction

% positive

The share of a peptide's graded Reddit and X reports that are glowing or positive, vendor-adjacent posts left out. A peptide with few reports is pulled toward the average of all reports, as if it had eight average ones besides its own, so two glowing posts cannot top the list. Kept peptides rank by the same reports' mean grade, shrunk the same way, and excluded ones follow in that order.

Researcher estimate

No first-hand report of this peptide has been graded yet, so the figure is the researchers' own rating out of 10 from what they read about it. It ranks alongside the computed scores until reports arrive.

Safety tier

Each peptide is tiered clean, caution or excluded from its five risk axes under the chosen safety bar. An excluded peptide has a plausible route to serious harm, so it stays listed with the reason but ranks behind every other entry, however good its reviews.

Safety bar

The safety bar sets how much risk it takes to exclude a peptide. Strict: out on any serious mechanism with little human data, or any documented serious harm. Balanced: out on documented serious harm (unless it is obvious, reversible and from a regulated product), or a serious mechanism whose harm would be silent with no human data at all. Evidence only: out only on documented serious harm in humans that is lasting, delayed or from grey-market product.

Seen harm

Documented serious adverse events in humans, from 0 for none despite real exposure to 3 for deaths or several well-documented serious harms. Serious means a hospital or emergency visit or harm lasting weeks, so a headache or a bad night does not count.

Mechanism

A plausible biological route to serious harm at the doses people use, such as growth-factor signalling, hormone-axis suppression, heart or blood-pressure effects or immune activation. It runs from 0 when none is known to 3 when a dangerous pathway has been shown in living animals.

Data gap

How little human safety data exists for the molecule actually sold, from 0 for an approved drug with large trials and years of use to 3 for no human safety data at all. A modified analogue does not inherit its parent's trials.

Silent harm

Whether the feared harm would show quickly or stay hidden, from 0 when it is obvious and goes on stopping to 3 when it is silent and delayed, like tumour promotion or slow organ damage. User reports cannot reveal a harm that takes years to appear, so a high score here limits what good reviews can tell you.

Product

The risk of what people actually buy, from 0 for a regulated pharmacy or supplement product taken by mouth or on the skin to 3 for a grey-market injectable. In one dataset of 6,441 grey-market samples, 42–71% failed basic quality criteria and 15% carried endotoxin.

Evidence

The strongest kind of study behind the peptide's effects, from an approved drug through human controlled trials and small human studies to animal work or nothing of its own. Animal results often fail to carry over to people.

Access

How people get it: as an approved drug, a compounded prescription, an over-the-counter supplement or from the grey market, where nobody checks the vial. The channel decides both the legal position and the risk of a bad batch.

Price per month

Thirty days of the typical dose, from its low end to its high end, priced at the listing a careful buyer would choose: in stock, from a shop scoring 4 of 5 on trust (third-party tested where no score is set), failing that 3, a pure pack before a blend, a European shop first, then the cheapest per mg. The range is the dose's, not the shops'. A per-dose amount counts once a day unless the dose says otherwise. Prices are in euros at ECB rates of 2026-10-29, before shipping; the shop table keeps each listing's price per mg, per gram for bulk supplements. Where no listing can be priced the researchers' own estimate stands in, and says so.

Dose users report

The middle half of the daily doses stated in at least five first-hand reports, vendor posts left out. Where its middle sits more than twice above or below the declared dose, the month is priced at it as well, since what people take is what they pay for.

Testing

Whether the shop publishes lab results: third-party tested means an independent lab checks each batch, own COA means the shop's own certificate of analysis, and no public tests means neither. A certificate shows purity, not safety.

Added peptide

Some packs sold under one peptide's name hold a second one, such as 5 mg GHK-Cu in a nasal kit, stated only in the description. Sprayed in the nose or injected it reaches the blood like an injection, so it carries the risk of that route and is tiered as the injectable form, whatever its tier on the skin. A pack whose page gives no contents list may hold more than its name.