{"slug":"snap-8","seoKey":"snap8","displayName":"SNAP-8","codes":["SNAP-8","Acetyl Octapeptide-3 (INCI)"],"synonyms":["acetyl octapeptide-3","acetyl glutamyl heptapeptide-3","acetyl glutamyl heptapeptide-1","acetyl octapeptide-1","acetyl octapeptide-8","SNAP8","Ac-EEMQRRAD-NH2","Acetyl Glutamyl Heptapeptide-3 (the SIX-unit Argireline / Acetyl Hexapeptide-8 is a DIFFERENT, shorter peptide)"],"legalClass":"cosmetic","identifiers":{"cas":"868844-74-0","pubchemCid":76283482,"unii":"8K14HJF88S","inchikey":"KMACPCJUCHVVGP-FNRPHRCSSA-N","formula":"C41H70N16O16S","molecularWeight":1075.2,"sequence":"Ac-EEMQRRAD-NH2"},"approvals":[{"market":"US","status":"not_approved","note":"Not a medicine: a query of the drug approval records for the substance name returned no match on 2026-09-17, and a full-text query of the labelling database returned 46 hits in which the substance appears only under inactive ingredients, never as an active one, while a control substance in the same query appeared as an active ingredient. It is a cosmetic ingredient, and cosmetic ingredients are not pre-approved: the 2022 cosmetics modernisation act requires facility registration, product listing, safety substantiation and serious adverse event reporting, but neither the law nor the regulations require specific tests for an individual ingredient. The substance registry entry under the unique ingredient identifier records substance identity, not any approval. It was never nominated as a bulk drug substance for pharmacy compounding, the nomination list of 14 May 2026 containing no matching entry while a control term appeared six times.","source":"https://api.fda.gov/drug/drugsfda.json?search=openfda.substance_name:%22ACETYL+OCTAPEPTIDE-3%22"},{"market":"EU","status":"not_approved","note":"Not a medicine: no centralised marketing authorisation and no assessment report known; the medicines database could not be queried on 2026-09-17, the search returning HTTP 401, so this negative finding is not verified against that register. It is a listed cosmetic ingredient under the cosmetics regulation, reference number 54131, with the declared functions humectant and skin conditioning and no restriction recorded. Cosmetics need no pre-market approval; required instead are a safety report, a responsible person in the Union and notification through the central portal, with advertising claims bound by the common criteria regulation. The finding that the substance appears in none of the prohibition or restriction annexes rests on the ingredient databases, not on a full-text search of the regulation, which could not be read (bot challenge).","source":"https://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/cosing/details/54131"},{"market":"DE","status":"not_approved","note":"Not a medicine: no national or EU marketing authorisation, and a substance with a medicinal purpose may not be placed on the market without one. The directly applicable EU cosmetics regulation governs it as a cosmetic ingredient; there is no national special rule. Not named in the annex to the anti-doping act, whose full text was searched on 2026-09-17 with no match while the control sections on peptide hormones and growth factors were present. Decisive for wording rather than for the substance: once a product is advertised with an effect on a bodily structure or function it becomes a medicinal product, which brings the advertising ban for unauthorised medicines into play.","source":"https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/amg_1976/__21.html"},{"market":"UK","status":"not_approved","note":"Not a medicine: no marketing authorisation identified. Permitted as a cosmetic ingredient under the assimilated EU cosmetics regulation, enforced through the cosmetic products enforcement regulations 2013, whose regulation 2 defines the assimilated regulation and names the enforcement authorities; the substance is neither prohibited nor restricted there. A product carrying medicinal claims would fall under the human medicines regulations instead.","source":"https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/1478/regulation/2"},{"market":"AU","status":"not_approved","note":"Not a medicine: no entry in the register of therapeutic goods identified. As a cosmetic ingredient it is an industrial chemical under the industrial chemicals introduction scheme, which regulates the ingredient but expressly not the finished product, its safety, labelling or advertising; a product carrying therapeutic claims becomes a therapeutic good and falls to the medicines regulator. NOT PRIMARY-VERIFIED: both regulator sites were unreachable from this environment on 2026-09-17 and the full text of the poisons standard could not be downloaded, every checked path returning the frame of a single-page application. The absence of a schedule entry is therefore a failure to find, not a verified negative finding.","source":"https://www.industrialchemicals.gov.au/"},{"market":"CA","status":"not_approved","note":"Not a medicine: the drug product database returned no result for the active ingredient on 2026-09-17, while a control query in the same endpoint returned entries — this negative finding is verified. The cosmetic side is NOT verified: the cosmetic ingredient hotlist showed no entry for the substance, but the control query in the same retrieval also failed, so the retrieval was incomplete.","source":"https://health-products.canada.ca/api/drug/activeingredient/?ingredientname=octapeptide"},{"market":"CH","status":"not_approved","note":"Not a medicine: no marketing authorisation identified. Cosmetics fall under food law and the federal ordinance on cosmetic products, which largely mirrors the EU regulation, with market surveillance by the cantonal authorities; Switzerland draws the line to medicinal products more sharply than the EU, and a product promoted in medicinal terms falls under the therapeutic products act. NOT PRIMARY-VERIFIED: the ordinance full text is available only through a JavaScript application on the federal law portal and the regulator's guidance sheet on the cosmetic/medicinal boundary returned HTTP 502 on 2026-09-17; no prohibition or restriction entry is known, but none was checked against the primary text.","source":"https://www.swissmedicinfo.ch/"}],"devStage":"preclinical","strongestEvidence":"none","wada":{"status":"not_listed","listYear":2026,"source":"https://www.wada-ama.org/en/prohibited-list"},"trials":[],"sameAs":["https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/76283482"],"lastVerified":"2026-09-17","version":"1.0","published":true,"locale":"en","title":"SNAP-8: what the evidence shows, status and safety","summary":"SNAP-8 is a cosmetic ingredient, not a medicine: an eight-unit fragment of a human nerve protein, used in creams. No peer-reviewed study of the substance itself could be found, and no registered trial either. The best measurement in this field, made by the FDA's own laboratory on the shorter sister peptide, found nothing below the epidermis. The proposed target sits deeper still.","updated":"2026-09-17","url":"https://mypep.app/peptides/snap-8"}