Peptide index
331 compounds across 19classes. Each one carries an evidence tier, because “there are studies” means something very different for semaglutide than it does for most of this list.
10 compounds
ARA-290 (Neuropathy Use)
Human trialsAn 11-amino-acid fragment of erythropoietin stripped of its blood-building activity, used to regrow damaged small nerve fibres and reduce the burning pain of sarcoidosis and diabetic neuropathy.
Pain, Analgesia & Neuromodulation
CGRP-Targeting Peptides
Approved drugCGRP is the neuropeptide that actually causes a migraine attack, and blocking it — with monthly antibodies or on-demand oral gepants — is the first genuinely mechanism-based migraine therapy ever built.
Pain, Analgesia & Neuromodulation
Chlorotoxin
Human trialsA scorpion venom peptide that sticks to brain tumour cells and nothing else — tagged with a fluorescent dye it makes glioma margins glow green during surgery, and it is now being used as the targeting arm of CAR-T cells.
Pain, Analgesia & Neuromodulation
DALDA
Animal data onlyA four-residue, highly water-soluble mu-opioid peptide designed to stay outside the brain — chiefly important today because its scaffold became SS-31, the mitochondrial peptide.
Pain, Analgesia & Neuromodulation
Dermorphin
Animal data onlyA frog-skin opioid peptide roughly thirty to forty times more potent than morphine at the mu receptor, with no human dosing data at all — it is a laboratory tool and a horse-racing doping scandal, not a usable analgesic.
Pain, Analgesia & Neuromodulation
Difelikefalin
Approved drugA kappa opioid agonist built so it cannot enter the brain, approved for the relentless itch of dialysis patients and studied for pain without the euphoria, dysphoria or addiction of a normal opioid.
Pain, Analgesia & Neuromodulation
Endomorphin-1 and -2
Animal data onlyThe most mu-selective natural opioid peptides known, and the scaffold behind the long-running attempt to build an opioid that kills pain without stopping your breathing.
Pain, Analgesia & Neuromodulation
Enkephalins
Animal data onlyThe body's own five-residue opioids — too short-lived to inject usefully, but the reason enkephalinase inhibitors and low-dose naltrexone protocols exist at all.
Pain, Analgesia & Neuromodulation
Substance P Antagonists (NK-1)
Approved drugBlockade of the substance P receptor — a beautiful pain hypothesis that failed completely in pain trials, then found a real and durable use stopping chemotherapy-induced vomiting.
Pain, Analgesia & Neuromodulation
Ziconotide
Approved drugA cone-snail venom peptide delivered straight into spinal fluid by an implanted pump for severe pain that opioids can no longer touch — it does not cause tolerance, dependence or respiratory depression, but it can cause psychosis.
Pain, Analgesia & Neuromodulation