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Compound · Nootropics · Drugs & hormones Soviet origin

Noopept (omberacetam)

Also omberacetam, GVS-111, N-phenylacetyl-L-prolylglycine ethyl ester.

Over the counter in Russia, gray market everywhere else, and never tested against placebo in humans.

Updated 27 Oct 202618 sources9 min read
Short answer

Noopept (omberacetam, GVS-111) is a dipeptide drug designed at the Zakusov Institute in Moscow as a peptide version of piracetam. It is not a true racetam. It acts partly through its metabolite cycloprolylglycine, and in rats it raises NGF and BDNF expression in the hippocampus and protects neurons against oxidative and amyloid injury. The human evidence is a few small Russian studies, none placebo-controlled. The most cited, a 53-patient comparison with piracetam run by the developer, detected no difference on standard cognitive scales. No trial has tested healthy young adults, and there are no systematic long-term safety data. It is sold over the counter in Russia and has no approval in the US or EU.

Summary drafted from this entry’s sources; editorial review pending.

01Key questions

Does Noopept work?

In rats and cell models it consistently shows neurotrophic and protective effects. In humans the main study is a 56-day Russian trial in 53 patients with mild cognitive disorders, which compared it with piracetam rather than placebo and detected no difference on the MMSE; Noopept did better on anxiety, sleep and clinician global rating. An open study in 60 stroke patients reported gains against untreated controls. None of the human studies used a placebo, so this is not enough to say it works.111112

Is Noopept a prodrug of cycloprolylglycine?

Partly. Rat studies show it is converted to cycloprolylglycine, an endogenous dipeptide with its own nootropic-like effects, but the parent molecule also reaches the circulation and produces effects that cycloprolylglycine alone does not, so it is better described as a drug with an active metabolite.13

Does Noopept raise BDNF?

In rats, yes: Ostrovskaya and colleagues found raised NGF and BDNF mRNA in the hippocampus after repeated dosing. The effect was region and time dependent, and no study has measured it in humans.5

Is Noopept legal?

It is registered in Russia and sold there without prescription. It is not approved in the US, where the FDA sent a warning letter in 2019 to a seller marketing it with Alzheimer's claims, and supplement products have been found to contain it alongside other unapproved drugs.17

What are the side effects of Noopept?

In the Russian trial, a few patients reported irritability, sleep disturbance and raised blood pressure, and two withdrew. The official Russian label lists allergy and warns about hypertension. There are no systematic safety data beyond a few months.11

What would change this rating?

A placebo-controlled, independently run human trial with a defined population and standard cognitive outcomes. Without one, the rodent data cannot be translated into a claim about people.

Noopept (international name omberacetam, lab code GVS-111) is a two-amino-acid peptide drug built at the Zakusov Institute of Pharmacology in Moscow as a piracetam analogue. It is sold over the counter in Russian pharmacies and as a gray-market powder everywhere else. The rodent and cell work is real and points to neurotrophin induction and protection against oxidative injury. The human evidence is a handful of small Russian clinical studies, none placebo-controlled; the most cited is an unblinded, developer-run comparison with piracetam in 53 patients over 8 weeks. There is no study in healthy young adults and no systematic long-term safety data.

Noopept usually gets filed under racetams, but it is not one: it has no pyrrolidone ring. It is N-phenylacetyl-L-prolylglycine ethyl ester, a dipeptide designed in the 1980s and 1990s by Seredenin, Gudasheva, Ostrovskaya and colleagues as a peptide version of piracetam. It belongs with the other Moscow-designed peptide drugs, Semax and Selank, and with the wider Russian pharmacology tradition that also produced bromantane.

02What it is: a dipeptide that becomes cycloprolylglycine

In rats, Noopept itself was not detectable in the brain an hour after an injection. What rose was cyclo-L-prolylglycine (CPG), 2.5-fold above baseline. CPG is a cyclic dipeptide the brain already makes, and blood and brain enzymes convert Noopept into it in vitro. The developers concluded that Noopept acts at least partly as a prodrug of an endogenous nootropic peptide (Gudasheva et al., 1997, PMID 9358206). CPG on its own raised BDNF in cultured neurons (PMID 27599510).

The prodrug label is a simplification. The same group found that oral Noopept improved one-session learning in rats in a way that CPG and piracetam did not (PMID 11782792). A later rat pharmacokinetic study describes CPG as an active metabolite with a different pharmacokinetic profile and a similar spectrum of effects (PMID 30378564). The Russian product label says the parent molecule reaches the bloodstream unchanged, peaks in about 15 minutes, has a plasma half-life of 0.38 hours and is partly metabolised to CPG (Vidal: Noopept label). The fairest summary is a short-lived parent drug plus an active metabolite, not a pure prodrug.

03Mechanisms in animals and cells

Claim What was shown Model Source
Raises NGF and BDNF A single dose raised NGF and BDNF mRNA in the hippocampus. In the cortex, expression fell below control after one dose; 28 days of dosing gave a slight cortical BDNF rise. No tolerance developed over 28 days, and the hippocampal effect was stronger after chronic dosing Rat, Northern blot Ostrovskaya et al., 2008 (PMID 19240853)
Acts on AMPA receptors Direct binding to AMPA sites is weak (IC50 about 80 µM, ten times weaker than the related drug nooglutil). EEG changes in rats were partly reversed by a non-NMDA glutamate antagonist, and the acute EEG response faded by the ninth injection Rat brain membranes; awake rats PMID 21476267; PMID 12596524
Antioxidant, anti-apoptotic Protected human cortical neurons from hydrogen peroxide (IC50 1.21 µM), cut free radicals and lipid peroxidation, and outperformed piracetam and vitamin E in the same assay. Also protected Down syndrome neurons in culture Human fetal cortical neurons in vitro Pelsman et al., 2003 (PMID 12711349)
Alzheimer-type protection Reduced reactive oxygen species, calcium overload, apoptosis and tau phosphorylation at Ser396 caused by beta-amyloid PC12 cells Ostrovskaya et al., 2014 (PMID 25096780)
Restores memory in a dementia model Restored spatial memory and raised antibodies to beta-amyloid oligomers Olfactory-bulbectomised mice Ostrovskaya et al., 2007 (PMID 17092975)

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Nearly every mechanistic paper comes from the institute that invented and licensed the drug. That does not make the findings wrong, but none of the headline mechanisms has been independently replicated in a published Western lab, and none has been measured in a human brain.

04The human evidence: small, no placebo

The trial everyone cites is Neznamov and Teleshova, published in Russian in 2008 and in English in 2009 (PMID 18697252; doi:10.1007/s11055-009-9128-4). Both authors worked at the Zakusov Institute, the developer.

  • Who: 53 outpatients with mild cognitive disorders: 37 with vascular brain disease (over 50) and 16 with post-concussion syndrome (18 to 60). 31 received Noopept, 22 piracetam.
  • Design: randomized, comparative, 56 days. No placebo arm, and the paper does not describe blinding.
  • Cognitive result: both drugs improved MMSE and other cognitive scores from baseline. On MMSE, BPRS and CCSE, Noopept and piracetam did not differ.
  • Where Noopept won: anxiety, irritability, fatigue, sleep and clinician global impression ratings, with effects on mood and fatigue appearing from the first or second week and cognitive changes from week three.
  • Dropouts: 41 of 53 finished. Two Noopept patients stopped because their blood pressure rose and needed treatment. Piracetam had more side effects overall.

Read honestly, this trial detected no significant difference from piracetam on cognitive tests in patients with vascular or post-traumatic impairment, and Noopept was better tolerated. A trial this small cannot show that two drugs are equivalent, and piracetam's own benefit for memory is contested (see Racetams), so the comparison without a placebo arm proves little.

The other human reports are no stronger. An open study in 60 stroke patients reported better MMSE and verbal-fluency scores after two months than in untreated controls (Amelin et al., 2011, PMID 22500312). The same Moscow group described EEG changes typical of nootropics in its trial patients (PMID 19008801), and Russian clinics have reported it in neurasthenia (PMID 19253467) and alongside tuberculosis treatment (PMID 19565831). None of these abstracts reports a placebo arm or blinded assessment. A 2018 study in older teachers combined it with self-massage, so the drug's own effect cannot be separated out (PMID 30877834). No trial has tested Noopept in healthy young adults, the population that buys it online.

05Side effects and what is missing

  • In the trial: sleep disturbance, irritability and raised blood pressure, mostly mild and transient; only sleep disturbance and blood pressure were judged linked to the drug, in two patients.
  • On the Russian label: possible allergic reactions and a rise in blood pressure in patients with hypertension, mainly severe hypertension. Contraindicated in pregnancy, breastfeeding, under 18 and in severe liver or kidney impairment (Vidal).
  • Long-term data: none worth the name. The controlled comparison lasted 56 days; the open stroke study reported results at two months and described safety only in general terms. Nobody has published what happens over years of daily use.
  • Product quality: in ten US "cognitive" supplements, omberacetam turned up in every one, at amounts from about half to four times a typical pharmaceutical dose. Individual products held up to four unapproved drugs, some undeclared, and three in four declared amounts were wrong (Cohen et al., 2021, PMID 34484905). European and Australian medicines labs intercepted bulk Noopept raw material between 2020 and 2024 (PMID 40558871).

07Claims audit

Claim Verdict Why
"1,000 times stronger than piracetam" Misleading It is a milligram comparison. In the only head-to-head human trial, Noopept was given at a much lower dose than piracetam and no significant difference in cognitive effect was detected
"Boosts BDNF and NGF" True in rats Shown as hippocampal mRNA in rats; never measured in humans
"Clinically proven nootropic" Overstated A few small Russian studies, none placebo-controlled; the main one was a developer-run comparison in 53 patients
"Works for healthy students and professionals" Untested No published trial in healthy young adults
"No tolerance" Mixed No tolerance in rat neurotrophin expression over 28 days, but the acute rat EEG response faded within nine doses
"Pure prodrug of cycloprolylglycine" Partly true CPG is an active metabolite, but the parent drug also enters the circulation and has effects CPG lacks in rats

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08What would change the rating

  • A placebo-controlled, blinded trial run outside the developer's institute, in mild cognitive impairment or in healthy adults.
  • Any human biomarker evidence, such as serum BDNF, linked to cognitive change.
  • Systematic safety data beyond a few months.

Until then, Noopept is a well-characterised animal-model nootropic with a thin human record. If you want the cholinergic side of the racetam question, see Alpha-GPC and citicoline; for the field as a whole, the nootropics overview.

09Where to get it

No links for this entry

Outside Russia Noopept is sold mainly as gray-market powder whose contents are not independently tested, and supplements have been found to contain it undeclared. We don't link to sellers, affiliate or otherwise. How we make money

What studies and practitioners report

Amounts as reported in the cited sources: trial doses with the population studied, and practitioner-reported ranges marked as such. Not medical advice.

  • Trial 20 mg/day · Two 10 mg doses a day for 56 days 31 patients with mild cognitive disorders of vascular or traumatic origin (no placebo arm) Neznamov and Teleshova 2009
  • Practitioner-reported 20-30 mg/day · Russian product label adults (registered indication in Russia) Vidal Russia label

Further reading: detailed protocols

10Connections

Neighborhood · 8 linked entriesOpen full map →
Soviet medical researchGuide · 21 links→ Russian pharmacologyGuide · 17 links→ Nootropics and smart drugsGuide · 14 links→ SelankCompound · 14 links→ SemaxCompound · 13 links→ Nootropic combinations studiedGuide · 11 links→ RacetamsCompound · 9 links→ PhenibutCompound · 7 links→

11Sources

  1. Gudasheva TA, Boyko SS, Ostrovskaya RU et al. The major metabolite of dipeptide piracetam analogue GVS-111 in rat brain and its similarity to endogenous neuropeptide cyclo-L-prolylglycine. Eur J Drug Metab Pharmacokinet. 1997;22(3):245-52. PMID 9358206PubMed 9358206
  2. Gudasheva TA, Koliasnikova KN, Antipova TA, Seredenin SB. Neuropeptide cycloprolylglycine increases the levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor in neuronal cells. Dokl Biochem Biophys. 2016;469(1):273-6. PMID 27599510PubMed 27599510
  3. Ostrovskaya RU, Mirsoev TK, Romanova GA et al. Proline-containing dipeptide GVS-111 retains nootropic activity after oral administration. Bull Exp Biol Med. 2001;132(4):959-62. PMID 11782792PubMed 11782792
  4. Boyko SS, Zherdev VP, Shevchenko RV. Pharmacokinetics of noopept and its active metabolite cycloprolyl glycine in rats (in Russian). Biomed Khim. 2018;64(5):455-458. PMID 30378564PubMed 30378564
  5. Ostrovskaya RU, Gudasheva TA, Zaplina AP et al. Noopept stimulates the expression of NGF and BDNF in rat hippocampus. Bull Exp Biol Med. 2008;146(3):334-7. PMID 19240853PubMed 19240853
  6. Firstova IuIu, Vasil'eva EV, Kovalev GI. Studying specific effects of nootropic drugs on glutamate receptors in the rat brain (in Russian). Eksp Klin Farmakol. 2011;74(1):6-10. PMID 21476267PubMed 21476267
  7. Kovalev GI, Vorob'ev VV. The role of non-NMDA glutamate receptors in the EEG effects of chronic administration of noopept GVS-111 in awake rats (in Russian). Eksp Klin Farmakol. 2002;65(6):6-9. PMID 12596524PubMed 12596524
  8. Pelsman A, Hoyo-Vadillo C, Gudasheva TA et al. GVS-111 prevents oxidative damage and apoptosis in normal and Down's syndrome human cortical neurons. Int J Dev Neurosci. 2003;21(3):117-24. PMID 12711349PubMed 12711349
  9. Ostrovskaya RU, Vakhitova YV, Kuzmina USh et al. Neuroprotective effect of novel cognitive enhancer noopept on AD-related cellular model involves the attenuation of apoptosis and tau hyperphosphorylation. J Biomed Sci. 2014;21:74. PMID 25096780PubMed 25096780
  10. Ostrovskaya RU, Gruden MA, Bobkova NA et al. The nootropic and neuroprotective proline-containing dipeptide noopept restores spatial memory and increases immunoreactivity to amyloid in an Alzheimer's disease model. J Psychopharmacol. 2007;21(6):611-9. PMID 17092975PubMed 17092975
  11. Neznamov GG, Teleshova ES. Comparative studies of Noopept and piracetam in the treatment of patients with mild cognitive disorders in organic brain diseases of vascular and traumatic origin. Neurosci Behav Physiol. 2009;39(3):311-21. doi:10.1007/s11055-009-9128-4 . Russian original: Zh Nevrol Psikhiatr Im S S Korsakova. 2008;108(3):33-42. PMID 18697252PubMed 18697252 · DOI 10.1007/s11055-009-9128-4
  12. Amelin AV, Iliukhina AIu, Shmonin AA. Noopept in the treatment of mild cognitive impairment in patients with stroke (in Russian). Zh Nevrol Psikhiatr Im S S Korsakova. 2011;111(10 Pt 1):44-6. PMID 22500312PubMed 22500312
  13. Bochkarev VK, Teleshova ES, Siuniakov SA et al. Clinical and electroencephalographic characteristic of noopept in patients with mild cognitive impairment of posttraumatic and vascular origin (in Russian). Zh Nevrol Psikhiatr Im S S Korsakova. 2008;108(11):47-54. PMID 19008801PubMed 19008801
  14. Chutko LS, Surushkina SIu, Nikishena IS et al. The use of noopept in the treatment of neurasthenia (in Russian). Zh Nevrol Psikhiatr Im S S Korsakova. 2008;108(12):51-2. PMID 19253467PubMed 19253467
  15. Mordyk AV, Lysov AV, Kondria AV et al. Prevention of neuro- and cardiotoxic side effects of tuberculosis chemotherapy with noopept (in Russian). Klin Med (Mosk). 2009;87(5):59-62. PMID 19565831PubMed 19565831
  16. Lysenko AV, Lysenko DS, Buinov LG, Sorokina LA. The influence of self-massage combined with Noopept on the professional performance of older teachers (in Russian). Adv Gerontol. 2018;31(6):996-1001. PMID 30877834PubMed 30877834
  17. Cohen PA, Avula B, Wang YH et al. Five unapproved drugs found in cognitive enhancement supplements. Neurol Clin Pract. 2021;11(3):e303-e307. PMID 34484905PubMed 34484905
  18. Vanhee C, Deconinck E, George M et al. The occurrence of illicit smart drugs or nootropics in Europe and Australia and their associated dangers. J Xenobiot. 2025;15(3):88. PMID 40558871PubMed 40558871

12Entry history

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Heretic informs and never prescribes. Where amounts appear, they describe what published studies used. Talk to a qualified clinician before acting on anything here.