Cerebrolysin vs Cortexin
Cerebrolysin and Cortexin are the two flagship animal-derived multi-component neuropeptide preparations in clinical use across Eastern European and Russian medicine. Both are complex peptide-amino-acid mixtures derived from brain tissue by controlled proteolytic digestion, both are used clinically for stroke recovery and vascular dementia, and no entry for either was found in the electronic medicines compendium (emc) on 17 October 2026. Their differences — source tissue, route, and clinical positioning — matter for research-context selection.
At a glance
| Cerebrolysin | Cortexin | |
|---|---|---|
| Source tissue | Porcine brain (whole-brain digest) | Bovine cerebral cortex (cortex-specific extract) |
| Manufacturer | Ever Neuro Pharma (Austria) | Geropharm (Russia) |
| Primary route | Intravenous infusion | Intramuscular injection |
| Approved indications | Stroke, vascular dementia, AD, TBI | Broader: adult neurology + paediatric perinatal CNS injury, developmental delays, epilepsy adjunct |
| Evidence base | Cochrane systematic-review coverage; CASTA trial; multiple RCTs | Substantial Russian clinical trial body; no Cochrane-level Western coverage |
| Adult clinical use | Stroke recovery, vascular dementia, TBI | Stroke recovery, vascular dementia, TBI, post-encephalitic recovery |
| Paediatric clinical use | Not routinely approved paediatric | Approved paediatric indications — perinatal HIE, developmental delays |
| Typical course | No general course length; one trial schedule is on the Cerebrolysin profile | No general course length; one trial schedule is on the Cortexin profile |
| UK status | No emc entry found (checked 17 October 2026) | No emc entry found (checked 17 October 2026) |
| Evidence tier | A (Cochrane meta-analyses) | B (Russian clinical + approved paediatric use) |
What they share
Common mechanistic ground
Both preparations are multi-component peptide-amino-acid mixtures that produce pleiotropic neurotrophic effects. Both mimic aspects of BDNF, NGF, GDNF, and CNTF signalling at cognate receptors without being any single neurotrophin. Both show anti-apoptotic effects in ischaemic and traumatic injury models, both modulate microglial activation and reduce neuroinflammatory cytokines, and both are used clinically as adjuncts to standard-of-care rehabilitation in stroke and dementia indications.
The pharmacological overlap is substantial enough that comparative trials in vascular dementia have reported broadly similar cognitive outcomes on standard rating scales — the differences are as much in tolerability, practical administration, and clinical indication footprint as in fundamental pharmacology.
Where they differ