Overview
A nerve-repair and anti-inflammatory peptide for neuropathy, burning, tingling, numb, or painful small nerves.
Built from a piece of EPO (the red-blood-cell hormone), but deliberately stripped of the blood-building part; it repairs tissue without thickening your blood.
One of the few peptides here with real human trial data.
What It Does
11-amino-acid peptide from the helix-B domain of erythropoietin. Selectively activates the Innate Repair Receptor (IRR), the EPOR/CD131 (β- common) heterodimer, not the classic EPO receptor.
Drives tissue protection, small-nerve-fiber regeneration, and resolution of inflammation, without stimulating erythropoiesis.
Reconstitution
| Vial Size | BAC Water / Solvent | Concentration |
|---|---|---|
| 10 mg | + 1.25 mL | 8 mg/mL |
| 16 mg | + 2 mL | 8 mg/mL |
Reconstitution Calculator
Enter the vial amount and diluent volume to calculate concentration. If you already have a target amount, you can also convert it to liquid volume and syringe markings. This tool does not recommend a target amount.
Enter a target amount you already have and select the syringe capacity.
Mathematical reference only. The calculator does not determine an appropriate target amount. Syringe capacity only changes the maximum volume that fits.
Protocol
| Phase | Frequency | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 (ramp) | Daily SubQ | 2 mg | Common community start, assess tolerance before the full dose. |
| Weeks 2–4 | Daily SubQ | 4 mg | The trial dose. Phase 2 tested 1–8 mg/day; 4 mg was the therapeutic target and 8 mg gave no extra benefit, do not |
| Off | After 28 | – | Trials ran a single 28-day course. Reassess before repeating; no long-term dosing data exists. days |
a 28-day daily course (what the trials actually did), then reassess. Community practice repeats courses with a break rather than dosing continuously.
Daily SubQ, anytime; consistency matters more than time of day.
Phase 2 human RCT data (sarcoidosis small-fiber neuropathy), unusually strong for this catalog, but single-institution and no Phase 3.
Unisex, the IRR repair pathway is not sex-specific and trials enrolled both men and women at the same 4 mg dose; no cycle effect. Avoid in pregnancy (no data).
Handling & Stacking
- Freeze-dried: -4°F.
- Reconstituted: 36–46°F.
- Best used within 28 days; protect from light.
- There's no reliable community potency figure for ARA-290, a robust 11-aa peptide with no published data, so treat the vial as sterility-limited at ~28 days; a best-guess default, not a measured window.
- Well tolerated in trials.
- Occasional mild injection-site reaction.
- No rise in hemoglobin, hematocrit, reticulocytes, or blood pressure at 4 mg/day × 28 days; the key difference from EPO.
- Neuropathic pain and symptom scores improved over the 28-day course; structural nerve regrowth (corneal nerve fiber density) measurable by day 28.
- Serum half-life is only minutes, the effect comes from receptor signalling, not blood levels, so don’t chase frequency.
- Supply math at the 4 mg/day target: 16mg → 4 days/vial (7 vials per 28-day course) | 10mg → 2.5 days/vial (~11 vials).
- At 2 mg/day, halve it.
- Four drugs are FDA-approved for nerve pain: pregabalin (Lyrica), duloxetine (Cymbalta), tapentadol ER (Nucynta) and the 8% capsaicin patch (Qutenza).
- Proven and prescribable, reasonable to try first.
Safety & Patient Education
- Not FDA-approved.
- Holds orphan-drug designation for sarcoidosis-associated small-fiber neuropathy, but was never submitted for approval; development stalled after 2020 when the sponsor wound down All human data is Phase 2, single-institution (Netherlands), n ranging from under 40 to 64; no Phase 3 replication Longest human exposure studied is 28 days, long-term safety is unknown Interacts with EPO-receptor complexes and vascular endothelium, caution with pre-existing cardiovascular disease Vial quality varies, request a COA for each lot
- Compound-specific: CBC at baseline + end (confirm hematocrit/hemoglobin are unchanged, they should be).
- CMP baseline.
- Out of range?
- A rising hematocrit is NOT expected on ARA-290, investigate another cause.
