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GHK-Cu 50mg
Copper-Binding Tripeptide (GHK-Cu)$49.00CAD · $0.98 / mg
In stock · 28 available · ships within 48 h from BC
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Lab result for this lotVerified · Testides
99.93%purity · HPLC-UV 214 nm
Measured content68.67 mg
LotGHK50-0626-02
Testing labTestides, Toronto
Reported28 Sep 2026
Testides certificate, lot GHK50-0626-02. 99.93% by HPLC-UV at 214 nm; projected content 68.67 mg vs 50 mg label. Enter report ARUA-GHK-50-092026 at testides.com/verify.
✓ Certificate held — lot GHK50-0626-02, Testides (Toronto)
Assayed by Testides, Toronto, Canada, report ARUA-GHK-50-092026, run 25 September 2026 and reported 28 September 2026: 99.93% purity by HPLC-UV at 214 nm, and a projected content of 68.67 mg against a 50 mg label weight.
Testides verifies this report by the document itself: upload the original PDF at testides.com/verify and it is checked against the laboratory's released copy. Email info@thepeptide.ca and we will send you the PDF · All lot results
GHK-Cu is the copper(II) complex of glycyl-L-histidyl-L-lysine, a three-residue peptide first isolated from human plasma, supplied here as 50 mg of lyophilised powder for laboratory research use only.
Lot GHK50-0626-02 was sent to Testides in Toronto by us, not by the manufacturer. It came back at 99.93% HPLC purity with one trace impurity at 0.07%, and the laboratory's content calculation came to 68.67 mg in a vial labelled 50 mg. We publish both figures, and we publish what the report does not establish, because a certificate is only as useful as the reader's understanding of what it measured.
Chemically, GHK-Cu is CAS 89030-95-5, formula C14H22CuN6O4, molecular weight 401.91 g/mol. The free tripeptide GHK (C14H24N6O4) is 340.38 g/mol; the difference is the bound copper ion, less the two protons it displaces. That distinction matters when reading any content figure, because milligrams of GHK-Cu and milligrams of GHK are not the same quantity. The content question below explains why that is relevant to this lot.
What makes GHK-Cu interesting as a reagent is that it is small, endogenous and defined by a metal. The peptide was identified in 1973 as a plasma factor that prolonged the survival of cultured liver cells, and the copper chemistry was worked out through the early 1980s: GHK binds Cu(II) tightly, and much of the later literature treats the complex as a copper-delivery and signalling molecule in extracellular-matrix and wound-model systems rather than as a hormone. The powder is blue. That colour is the copper, and it is expected.
The evidence base is also narrower than most vendor pages suggest. It is largely cell culture and animal wound models, a large share of it comes from one research group, and the human data are almost entirely topical cosmetic studies. The research sections below set out what has been measured, and where the claims run ahead of it.
For laboratory and research use only. Not for human consumption, veterinary use, or therapeutic application. Not approved by Health Canada. We do not provide preparation, dilution or administration guidance for any compound we sell.
Read the full research guide →CompoundGHK-Cu (copper tripeptide-1), lyophilised powder, 50 mg vial
SynonymsCopper tripeptide-1 (INCI name); Cu-GHK; glycyl-L-histidyl-L-lysine copper(II) complex
Compound classCopper(II)-binding endogenous tripeptide
CAS number89030-95-5
Molecular formulaC14H22CuN6O4 (free GHK: C14H24N6O4)
Molecular weight401.91 g/mol (free GHK: 340.38 g/mol)
SequenceGly-His-Lys (GHK), copper(II)-bound
AppearanceBlue lyophilised powder; the colour is the bound copper(II)
Verified purity99.93% (HPLC-UV, 214 nm)
Measured content68.67 mg projected (137% of label); basis being confirmed with the lab
Assay statusCertificate held and published
Test methodHPLC-UV at 214 nm, single injection, quantified against the laboratory's five-level calibration curve (R² 0.9998); run 25 September 2026, reported 28 September 2026
IdentityPeak assigned by the laboratory's processing method. Not confirmed by mass spectrometry, and not by retention time against the reference standard on this run
Testing laboratoryTestides, Toronto, Canada. Report ARUA-GHK-50-092026. Testides verifies this report by the document itself: upload the original PDF at testides.com/verify and it is checked against the laboratory's released copy. Email info@thepeptide.ca and we will send you the PDF
Cost per mg$0.98 CAD per mg of label weight ($49.00 per vial)
Research applicationsFibroblast collagen and elastin synthesis assays, extracellular-matrix remodelling and wound-chamber models, copper transport and coordination chemistry, gene-expression (connectivity-map) studies, antioxidant pathway assays
Related compoundsBPC-157 10mg · Wolverine Blend (BPC-157 + TB-500) · MOTS-C 10mg
Ships fromBritish Columbia, Canada. Free tracked shipping Canada-wide, dispatched within 48 hours
Regulatory statusNot approved as a drug by Health Canada, the FDA or any other regulator. No DIN
Intended useLaboratory research only, in vitro and preclinical. Not a drug; not for human or veterinary use
Vial contents50 mg label weight, sealed vial, no excipient
Current lotGHK50-0626-02
Sealed vial: −20 °C long-term, 2–8 °C short-term, desiccated and protected from light
Shipping is free and tracked, Canada-wide, on every order, with no minimum. Orders are dispatched within 48 hours, Monday to Friday, from British Columbia. Estimated delivery: 2–8 business days.
Sealed, unopened vials are exchangeable within 14 days of delivery. Report damage within 48 hours of the expected delivery date.
Discovery. Pickart and Thaler reported in 1973 that a tripeptide in human serum prolonged the survival of normal liver cells in culture and stimulated growth in neoplastic liver cells ( Nature New Biology 1973;243:85-87, PMID 4349963 ). The active factor was identified as glycyl-L-histidyl-L-lysine. Copper binding. Lau and Sarkar characterised the interaction of Cu(II) with GHK in the early 1980s ( Biochem J 1981;199(3):649-656 ). Copper is coordinated through the glycine amino group, the histidine imidazole nitrogen and a deprotonated backbone amide, which is why the complex is stable enough to handle as a defined compound and why the solid is blue. Why that makes it a distinct reagent. Free GHK and GHK-Cu are not interchangeable in an assay. Much of the reported activity is attributed to the complex, or to GHK acting as a copper carrier. A protocol that does not control copper availability cannot separate the two, and a content figure that does not state its basis cannot be converted from one to the other without that correction. Plasma levels. Pickart and Margolina report plasma GHK of about 200 ng/mL at age 20, declining to about 80 ng/mL by age 60 ( PMID 29986520 ). That age trend is the basis for most of the "repair signal" framing in the literature. It is a correlation, not a demonstrated cause.
Fibroblast collagen synthesis. Maquart et al. reported that GHK-Cu stimulated collagen synthesis in fibroblast cultures ( FEBS Lett 1988;238(2):343-346, PMID 3169264 ). This is the most-cited in vitro finding and the origin of the compound's association with matrix remodelling. Wound-chamber model in rats. The same group implanted stainless-steel wire-mesh chambers under the skin of rats and injected GHK-Cu into them. They measured a concentration-dependent increase in dry weight, DNA, total protein, collagen and glycosaminoglycan content, with collagen stimulated roughly twice as much as non-collagen protein ( J Clin Invest 1993;92(5):2368-2376, PMID 8227353 ). Gene-expression work. Campbell et al. built a gene-expression signature of emphysema severity from human lung tissue and searched the Connectivity Map for compounds that reversed it. GHK was a top hit. In lung fibroblasts from people with COPD, 10 nM GHK restored impaired collagen-gel contraction and reorganised the actin cytoskeleton ( Genome Med 2012;4(8):67, PMID 22937864 ). Reviews. Pickart ( J Biomater Sci Polym Ed 2008, PMID 18644225 ), Pickart, Vasquez-Soltero and Margolina ( BioMed Res Int 2015, PMID 26236730 ) and Pickart and Margolina ( Int J Mol Sci 2018, PMID 29986520 ) summarise the tissue-remodelling, antioxidant and gene-expression literature. They are useful maps of the field, but they are reviews by the compound's discoverer, and should be read as such.
Most of it is not human data. The mechanistic and wound-healing evidence is cell culture and animal models. The controlled human studies are topical cosmetic trials of creams on facial skin, measuring outcomes such as wrinkle depth and skin density. Several of the most-cited ones, including the 2002 facial and eye-cream studies attributed to Leyden, are reported in reviews, but we could not locate them as peer-reviewed primary papers. A 2016 randomised study of nano-lipid encapsulated GHK-Cu against a Matrixyl 3000 control (Badenhorst et al., J Aging Sci 2016;4:166) is the more formal example, and it too is topical. Gene-expression findings are associations. Connectivity-map results show that GHK treatment moves an expression profile in a direction that correlates with a disease signature reversing. That generates hypotheses. It does not demonstrate a mechanism or an outcome, and the large gene counts quoted on vendor pages come from this kind of analysis. One group dominates the literature. A large share of the papers and all of the major reviews come from Pickart and co-authors. That does not make them wrong, but independent replication is thinner than the citation count implies. Stability in biological fluids is a known limit. The 2018 review itself notes GHK's susceptibility to breakdown by carboxypeptidases in wound environments. Results from a clean culture medium do not automatically carry over to a protease-rich system.
Canada. GHK-Cu is not an approved drug. There is no Drug Identification Number (DIN) for it, and the vial on this page is sold only as a laboratory reagent. Copper tripeptide-1 appears in cosmetic formulations, but that is a topical cosmetic context and says nothing about any other use. United States. GHK-Cu is not FDA-approved. FDA's page on bulk drug substances that may present significant safety risks in pharmacy compounding, updated 22 April 2026, lists "GHK-Cu (for injectable routes of administration)" among substances whose nominations were withdrawn. FDA's stated concerns were potential immunogenicity from aggregation, peptide-related impurities, and limited human safety data ( FDA ). That listing concerns US compounding pharmacies. It is not an approval. Sport. GHK-Cu is not named on the WADA Prohibited List. WADA's S0 category covers pharmacological substances with no current regulatory approval for human therapeutic use, and anti-doping analysts have flagged GHK-Cu as falling into that grey area. Anyone subject to anti-doping rules should treat it as a risk.
Lot GHK50-0626-02 was analysed by Testides, an independent laboratory in Toronto, under report ARUA-GHK-50-092026. The sample was run on 25 September 2026 on the laboratory's HPLC 02 with a 15-minute peptide method, detected at 214 nm, and the report was issued on 28 September 2026. Purity: 99.93%. The laboratory integrated two peaks. The GHK-Cu peak at 2.62 minutes was 99.93% of the total area, and a single impurity at 3.36 minutes was 0.07%. Nothing else was integrated in the plotted window. HPLC purity is area-percent: the target peak's share of everything the detector sees at 214 nm. It describes what else is in the vial, not how much GHK-Cu there is. Content: 68.67 mg. The main peak's area was read against a five-point calibration curve (0.05 to 0.75 mg/mL, R² 0.9998). The sample sat inside that range at 0.687 mg/mL, so the figure is interpolated, not extrapolated. What it does not establish. Identity on this run rests on the laboratory's processing method naming the peak. The sample and the reference standard were run on different methods, so their retention times were not compared, and no mass-spectrometry identity test was performed. It is also a single injection. Because GHK-Cu is small and polar, it elutes early, at 2.6 minutes, where co-eluting polar material is harder to separate. We state all of this here rather than let a purity figure imply more than it measured. Testides verifies this report by the document itself: upload the original PDF at testides.com/verify and it is checked against the laboratory's released copy. Email info@thepeptide.ca and we will send you the PDF. Every current lot is indexed on the lab results page.
Part of the answer is ordinary overfill. Lyophilised vials are filled above label weight because material is lost to vial walls, stoppers and filling tolerance, and most lots we have had assayed have measured at or above label. 137% is more than overfill usually explains, though, and we have put a second question to the laboratory: whether the content figure is expressed as GHK-Cu or as free GHK, and against which reference material. The copper complex weighs about 18% more than the free peptide, so a figure calculated on one basis and read on the other will be off by that much. An earlier assay on this compound, commissioned by the manufacturer through Janoshik Analytical (#210586), reported GHK content close to label weight. Until Testides confirms the basis, we publish the figure exactly as issued and label it as projected. It is not a purity claim and not a discount. Content and purity are separate measurements, and we price by label weight: $49.00 for 50 mg. The next lot will be published at whatever it measures.
Store the sealed vial at −20 °C long-term or 2–8 °C short-term, dry and protected from light, in its original packaging. Aliquot before freezing so a working stock is not repeatedly thawed. A change in the dry powder away from its blue colour is worth noting before use, since the colour reflects the copper complex. We do not provide preparation, dilution or administration guidance.
Shipping is free and tracked, Canada-wide, with no minimum order. Orders are dispatched within 48 hours, Monday to Friday, from British Columbia. Because the vial is already in Canada there is no international leg, no customs clearance and no brokerage on a domestic order. Vials ship sealed, with the lot number on the label so it can be matched against the published certificate. Tracking is issued at dispatch. Current transit estimates are on our shipping page.
Report damage in transit or non-delivery to info@thepeptide.ca within 48 hours of the expected delivery date, with photographs of the packaging and vial where applicable, and we will resolve it. Sealed, unopened vials are exchangeable within 14 days of delivery. There are no refunds or exchanges on product that has been opened, reconstituted or otherwise prepared: once a seal is broken we cannot verify handling history. Full terms: refund policy.
Pickart L, Thaler MM. Nature New Biology. 1973;243(124):85-87. PMID 4349963: the discovery paper: a tripeptide in human serum that prolonged survival of normal liver cells and stimulated growth in neoplastic liver cells in culture. Maquart FX, et al. FEBS Lett. 1988;238(2):343-346. PMID 3169264: GHK-Cu stimulated collagen synthesis in fibroblast cultures; the origin of its matrix-remodelling association. Maquart FX, et al. J Clin Invest. 1993;92(5):2368-2376. PMID 8227353: rat subcutaneous wound-chamber model: concentration-dependent increases in dry weight, DNA, protein, collagen and glycosaminoglycans. Pickart L. J Biomater Sci Polym Ed. 2008;19(8):969-988. PMID 18644225: review of GHK and tissue remodelling. Campbell JD, et al. Genome Med. 2012;4(8):67. PMID 22937864: connectivity-map analysis identifying GHK as reversing an emphysema gene signature; 10 nM GHK restored collagen-gel contraction in COPD lung fibroblasts. Pickart L, Vasquez-Soltero JM, Margolina A. BioMed Res Int. 2015;2015:648108. PMID 26236730: review of GHK as a modulator of pathways in skin regeneration. Pickart L, Margolina A. Int J Mol Sci. 2018;19(7):1987. PMID 29986520: review of regenerative and protective actions in light of gene-expression data; source of the plasma-level figures. Lau SJ, Sarkar B. Biochem J. 1981;199(3):649-656: the interaction of copper(II) with GHK, the coordination chemistry behind the complex.
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For laboratory and research use only. Not for human consumption, veterinary use, or therapeutic application. Not approved by Health Canada.