Oxiracetam

Oxiracetam is a hydroxylated analog of piracetam, developed in Italy in the early 1980s under the code ISF 2522 and also known as CGP 21690E. It was authorized for marketing in Italy under the trade name Neuromet on 21 April 1984 and was studied through the 1980s and 1990s in older patients with degenerative and multi-infarct dementia and with organic brain syndrome. It remains in clinical use in China, where oxiracetam served as the active comparator arm in a multicenter phase 3 trial run from 2019 to 2024 (PMID: 41381424). It has never been approved in the United States. Consumer-facing oxiracetam is sold as bulk powder or capsules under research-chemical terms.

The molecule carries a chiral center and is normally supplied as the racemate. The S enantiomer, marketed and studied in China as S-oxiracetam or L-oxiracetam, is the active one: in rats with chronic cerebral hypoperfusion, S-oxiracetam and not R-oxiracetam relieved spatial learning and memory impairment, reduced neuron damage and white matter lesions and increased cerebral blood flow (PMID: 28855592). This matters for anyone reading the literature, because racemic and single-enantiomer studies are not interchangeable.

Mechanistically oxiracetam is less well defined than aniracetam. Rodent work links its behavioral effects to cholinergic function: it antagonized both scopolamine-induced behavioral disruption and the scopolamine-induced fall in hippocampal and cortical acetylcholine in rats, with matching bell-shaped dose-effect curves (PMID: 2602443), and it prevented mecamylamine-induced impairment of active avoidance in mice (PMID: 2356212). It also acts on glutamatergic signaling: it prevented kynurenic acid antagonism of NMDA-evoked noradrenaline release in rat hippocampal slices (PMID: 9336311) and in slices of human neocortex taken during neurosurgery (PMID: 10381808). More recent work in APP/PS1 mice reports that oxiracetam slows desensitization of the GluA1 and GluA2 AMPA receptor subunits (PMID: 41739317).

Human results are inconsistent across four decades. Positive placebo-controlled results were reported in a 289-patient multicenter trial in degenerative, multi-infarct and mixed dementia (PMID: 2693996) and in several smaller Italian studies. Clearly negative results came from a 24-patient double-blind study in Alzheimer disease, where a broad neuropsychological battery showed no improvement in any patient (PMID: 1444879), and a 106-patient trial in solvent-related organic brain syndrome (PMID: 3296624). The largest modern trial, a 500-patient study commissioned by the South Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, found no difference from placebo on either co-primary endpoint after 36 weeks (PMID: 41614470).

Regulators have acted on those results. In February 2023 the South Korean drug regulator revoked the vascular cognitive impairment indication and ordered oxiracetam products withdrawn and destroyed after they failed clinical reassessment, and insurance coverage was suspended for seven products. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration stated in a February 2019 warning letter that oxiracetam is not a dietary ingredient and that products bearing cognitive claims are unapproved new drugs.

Oxiracetam is available in capsule form.

Compare prices, payment methods, shipping, and COA scores across 1 vendor.

1 of the vendors BodyHackGuide tracks list Oxiracetam (1 listing). Among BodyHackGuide's Oxiracetam listings recorded as in stock with a milligram count, the lowest price per milligram is $2.50/g at Disguised Alpha and the median is $2.50/g. The Oxiracetam prices on BodyHackGuide are vendors' listed prices as BodyHackGuide last recorded them, not transactions; the most recent recorded change to a Oxiracetam listing is dated 7 September 2026.

BodyHackGuide holds no third-party certificate records for Oxiracetam. Each vendor page on BodyHackGuide shows how many certificate records BodyHackGuide holds for that vendor.